Adrian Bankhead <[email protected]>
Public Comment for Executive Board Meeting, May 1, 2024 Audrey Ichinose <[email protected]> Wed, May 1, 2024 at 10:35 AM To: Adrian Bankhead <[email protected]>
Cc: Jessica Tovar <[email protected]>, Barbara Stebbins <[email protected]> Hi, Adrian.
I could not connect via Zoom with the information provided in the meeting announcement sent via email or at the Ava website.
So could you please circulate the following comment I had hoped to make to the members of the Board, CAC and staff?
Thank you very much!
Audrey Ichinose
To: Executive Board, Ava Community Energy
From: Audrey Ichinose, East Bay Clean Power Alliance (EBCPA) California Alliance for Community Energy (CACE)
Re: Increasing Ava’s investment in community-based Resilience Hubs Thank you for the chance to comment.
A significant event will soon take place that has significant implications for Ava’s support of community Resilience Hubs in its service area.
On May 13 workers will begin taking down the Iron Gate Dam on the Klamath River in northeast CA, the largest and southernmost of the four hydroelectric dams slated for removal from the river. As many of you know, the dam was owned by Pacificorp, an entity controlled by Berkshire Hathaway. Two factors brought about the dam’s removal, according to SFChronicle reporting:
· Pacificorp decided that the dam was too costly to operate. · And a large coalition of Indigenous tribes, farmers, fishermen and environmentalists strongly supported it. The dam greatly harmed the salmon population and did not provide water for drinking or farming for communities along the river.
5/1/24, 11:43 AM Ava Community Energy Mail - Public Comment for Executive Board Meeting, May 1, 2024 https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ik=703fa6ea73&view=pt&search=all&permmsgid=msg-f:1797872604389018338&simpl=msg-f:1797872604389018338 1/2 It seems remote from us, but the dam’s removal has relevance for the Resilience Hubs we have proposed for our underserved and disadvantaged communities:
· Like the dam removal, Resilience Hubs cannot be just a temporary response to climate change. We know that climate change is here to stay and that long-lasting changes are needed.
· Like the coalition that supported dam removal, Resilience Hubs are a meaningful way to restore and rebuild our fragmented, disadvantaged communities.
The second significance of the Iron Gate Dam removal for us is that Resilience Hubs won’t be cheap. It will require substantial investment over a number of years. Ava Community Energy thus needs to be thinking in terms of millions of dollars. Given the agency’s continued budgetary success, the suggestion of $15mil from the current surplus seems appropriate.
Thank you very much.
(For SF Chronicle reporting: https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/klamath-dam-removal-19431558.php) 5/1/24, 11:43 AM Ava Community Energy Mail - Public Comment for Executive Board Meeting, May 1, 2024 https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ik=703fa6ea73&view=pt&search=all&permmsgid=msg-f:1797872604389018338&simpl=msg-f:1797872604389018338 2/2