FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 30, 2002
CONTACT: Jon Horst, 406-247-7444, horst@wapa.gov

BILLINGS, Mont.--Four public meetings in mid-May across the upper Midwest kick off a process by Western Area Power Administration to determine how a proposed resource pool from the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program's Eastern Division will be used.

Western is looking for ideas on how to allocate up to 1 percent of the power generated by eight hydroplants in the Pick-Sloan's Missouri Basin Program's Eastern Division. The agency also wants to know which entities might be interested in getting allocations. The Pick-Sloan Program is a multi-purpose Federal water project across much of the upper Midwest. It provides flood control, irrigation, navigation, municipal water and hydropower to communities from Montana to Minnesota.

Meetings will be held:

• May 14 in Billings, Mont., from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Sheraton Hotel, 27 North 27th Street.
  
• May 15 in Fargo, N.D., from 1 to 4 p.m., at the Best Western Doublewood Inn, 3333 13th Ave., South.
  
• May 16 in Omaha, Neb., from 1 to 4 p.m., at the Holiday Inn Central 3321 South 72nd St.
  
• May 17 in Pierre, S.D., from 9 a.m. to noon, at the Best Western Kings Inn, 220 South Pierre.
  

Western's Upper Great Plains Region, which markets Pick-Sloan—Eastern Division power, is also gathering letters of interest as part of its public process to allocate up to about 20 megawatts of power for deliveries that could begin in January 2006.

Details on this process are available on Western's Web site at http://www.wapa.gov/newsroom/pdf/67_19571.pdf or by calling Jon Horst at 406-247-7444. They were published in the April 22 Federal Register.

Western's Upper Great Plains Region serves wholesale electric customers in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota. Western sells and delivers more than 12 billion kilowatt-hours of firm power generated at eight powerplants on the mainstem of the Missouri River. This power provides enough electricity to serve more than 3 million households. Western also owns and operates nearly 100 substations and 7,800 miles of high-voltage transmission lines across this region to deliver this power to the cities and towns, Native American tribes, rural electric cooperatives, Federal and state agencies and irrigation districts that are its customers.