May 5, 2021 | Community, Latest News
East River Electric’s 57th annual fundraiser to support LifeScape was a success, raising over $37,000. LifeScape is an organization which promotes independence for over 2,500 children and adults with disabilities throughout South Dakota. This year, the event was held as an online auction and an online raffle. Several local businesses generously donated items to the auction and cash to the LifeScape organization.
“The online auction and raffle were very successful and a direct tribute to our employees fulfilling our Touchstone Energy Cooperatives principle of Commitment to Community,” said East River General Manager Tom Boyko. “I want to thank our employee committee who really stepped up and organized the fundraiser. We also want to extend a heartfelt thank you to all the local businesses and member cooperatives that donated items to the auction. Our fundraiser was a success because of your generosity!”
East River’s annual fundraising efforts have helped provide for the very best in medical care, therapy, education and other services for the children at LifeScape. Several local children and people from around the region are served by LifeScape.
The East River Employees Committee donated $1,000, a total matched by East River Electric at $1,000 and matched by Basin Electric at $2,000. CoBank also contributed $2,000 to the event this year. In the 57 years since the East River fundraiser began, more than $335,000 has been raised to help LifeScape provide services to children and adults in rural South Dakota.
PHOTO CUTLINE – LifeScape empowers people to live their best lives.
Apr 14, 2021 | Latest News
East River Electric employees continue decades-long fundraiser tradition in a new format
MADISON — East River welcomes the public to support the 57th annual LifeScape Fundraiser on Thursday, April 15. It will be a virtual event instead of an oyster feed this year. “The Employees’ Committee knows the importance of supporting non-profits in our area, such as LifeScape. We knew that even though we couldn’t hold an in-person event, we still wanted to hold a fundraiser for LifeScape,” said Paul Letsche, East River Employees’ Committee chairperson. “We will be holding an online auction with items generously donated by businesses in our community.”
Proceeds from the online auction will benefit LifeScape, formerly Children’s Care Hospital and School and SD Achieve, whose mission it is to empower people to live their best lives. With more than $298,000 contributed to LifeScape over the years, East River’s annual fundraisers have helped provide for the very best in medical care, therapy, education and other services for the children at LifeScape.
“We are grateful for the partnership between LifeScape, East River Electric and the Madison community. It helps transform the lives of children and adults with complex care needs,” said Jessica Wells, LifeScape Foundation president. “This support enables LifeScape’s Journey of Hope to bring increased technology-based solutions, leading research in innovative treatment options and care closer to home. Nearly 1,400 children and adults from the Madison area and within the footprint of East River Electric Coop, will be impacted.”
To participate in the auction, register at the secure site: https://secure.qgiv.com/event/mountainoyster2021/
PHOTO CUTLINE – LifeScape empowers people to live their best lives.
Apr 13, 2021 | Community
Electric Cooperatives Donate $5,000 To Build Spink County EMS Center
Contact: Ben Dunsmoor, Communications Director, Northern Electric Cooperative
BATH – Emergency medical services are the cornerstone of the community. And organizers of a project in Spink County hope a new emergency medical services (EMS) center will build a solid foundation for the future of emergency response in the county. “It is necessary,” Mike Sanger, the director of Spink County Ambulance said. “When businesses look to move to Redfield, they ask about the school, the hospital, and ambulance and fire.”
Members of the Spink County Ambulance Service and the Redfield Community Memorial Hospital and Clinic Foundation are working to build a new EMS center in Redfield. A portion of the new building will house on-call EMTs because half of the county’s emergency responders live outside of Redfield and two of them live in Aberdeen. They currently stay in an old home that was purchased near the hospital, but the new EMS center would provide dedicated living quarters.
The new EMS center will also allow the EMTs to stay in the same building where the ambulances are parked. The county’s three ambulances will be housed in the EMS center. Right now, Spink County’s three ambulances are parked in two different locations and emergency equipment is kept in four different storage areas throughout Redfield. The proposed EMS Center would allow the ambulance service to operate more efficiently and serve all its needs with one building.
Organizers are also planning for a community room in the new building to host CPR trainings and community blood drives.
Spink County Ambulance Director Mike Sanger believes the project will help attract new EMTs in the future.
“We need to get younger people in here and it is hard to recruit if you don’t have good facilities or good equipment,” Sanger said.
Organizers of the project have been working to raise $580,000 for the building for the past three years. Northern Electric Cooperative teamed up with East River Electric Power Cooperative and Basin Electric Power Cooperative to donate checks totaling $5,0000 on March 12.
“We know how crucial emergency services are to our rural communities,” Northern Electric Cooperative CEO/General Manager Char Hager said. “This project will improve emergency response and put the Spink County Ambulance Service in a good position to grow and retain EMTs into the future.”
Spink County Ambulance currently averages 500 calls a year and provides emergency response to an 1,800 square mile area in Spink County and portions of Beadle, Faulk, Brown, and Hand counties. About $150,000 has been raised for the EMS center so far.
“We’re excited about it and keep plugging away looking at every option, financing and fundraising,” Sanger said about the fundraising efforts.
Organizers of the project hope to break ground for the building this fall.
Mar 17, 2021 | Community
Emma Neises of Carthage is the recipient of a $1,000 scholarship from Basin Electric Power Cooperative based in Bismarck, N.D. She is the daughter of Angie and Curt Neises of Carthage.
Basin Electric awards 176 scholarships per year to children of member cooperative employees and children of member cooperative consumers across the region. Neises’ mother, Angie, works as an Economic Development Finance Specialist for East River Electric Power Cooperative in Madison, a Basin Electric member.
Emma will attend Mount Marty University in Yankton to pursue a degree in psychology. She will be a member of the Mount Marty cross country team and the choir. After college graduation, she will go on to attend an Occupational Therapy school. Throughout her years at Howard High School, Emma was involved in cross country as the team captain and president, track, choir, football cheerleading, wrestling statistics, H club and was the President of the National Honor Society. She also was active in her local church as an organist, accompanist and assisted with community projects. “Thank you for the opportunity to apply for this scholarship,” said Emma. “It will help me reach my goals of pursuing Occupational Therapy.”
“Congratulations to Emma and her family on this wonderful honor,” said East River Electric CEO/General Manager Tom Boyko. “Emma’s dedication to academics, athletics and her community shows her commitment to attaining her goals. We wish Emma well as she continues her education at Mount Marty.”
Since the scholarship program began, over 5,000 students in the Basin Electric system have benefited from this program. Recipients are selected on the basis of academic record, potential to succeed, leadership and participation in school and community activities, honors, work experience, a statement of education and career goals and an outside appraisal by a teacher or adviser.
Cutline: (Left to Right) Tom Boyko, Emma Neises and Angie Neises.
Feb 18, 2021 | Latest News
East River Electric Power Cooperative, its power suppliers Basin Electric Power Cooperative and the Western Area Power Administration, along with other utility groups in our region joined the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) in 2015. Before joining SPP, Basin Electric, the Western Area Power Administration and Heartland Consumers Power District worked together to own and operate the bulk transmission grid. There were some benefits and downfalls to operating a standalone grid.
The decision to join the Southwest Power Pool was discussed and studied extensively by these utility groups for years before the systems decided to join SPP. In the end, they joined SPP because it allows these utilities to share generation and transmission resources with other utilities up and down the region in a more efficient manner and provide more reliable electricity to consumers. This decision has also brought financial benefits to consumers across the region.
Specifically for Basin Electric, the cooperative is able to sell generation into the market and East River Electric is able to see a return on transmission infrastructure. It’s led to a multi-million-dollar annual benefit to consumers in the East River footprint alone, with added financial benefits to other member cooperatives in the Basin Electric family. It means ratepayers see the benefit in the form of affordable and stable rates. East River Electric’s average wholesale rate has been stable for several years and has been reduced each of the past three years.
Details on the Southwest Power Pool
The Southwest Power Pool is a Regional Transmission Organization that balances energy generation with energy usage across 14 states from the Canadian border south to Oklahoma, New Mexico and parts of Texas. On a typical day, generation and transmission assets are used in the most efficient way possible by balancing energy generation with energy needs, allowing generation units across the SPP footprint to run and keep the grid stable at the lowest possible cost.
Transmission operation
In the Upper Midwest, the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA), the federal agency that markets power from the hydroelectric dams, is the Transmission Operator in the region. WAPA operates the bulk transmission infrastructure that delivers power from both WAPA and Basin Electric to East River Electric. East River Electric, which is a Transmission Owner in SPP, operates transmission and substation infrastructure that brings power to local member distribution systems who, in turn, deliver power to homes, farms and businesses.
Emergency situation
Several days before we experienced an energy emergency on Feb. 16, the Southwest Power Pool began notifying utilities that forecasted cold weather in much of their service territory could lead to potential issues on the grid. SPP began asking local utilities to start asking their consumers to voluntarily conserve energy to help ease strain on the regional grid. However, because of continued cold weather from Canada to Texas, demand for electricity outpaced generation resources that were available. In an emergency situation, SPP gives WAPA notice that rolling outages are needed with little notice. Then WAPA is required to begin rolling outages which impacts the transmission and substations in East River Electric’s system. When their substations are de-energized, consumers of local member distribution systems experience a power outage. This is what happened in our region on Feb. 16. These short-term outages are needed to protect the rest of the grid from damage and potentially uncontrolled outages that take longer to repair.
Excess generation resources mandated by federal government
Consumers may wonder how a utility group could come up short on the amount of generation needed to meet electric demand. The federal government requires regional transmission organizations to keep an excess of generation in their portfolios specifically for emergency situations. In the emergency that recently occurred, a combination of unfortunate circumstances led to rolling outages. A lack of normal wind energy capacity impacted the amount of generation available. Out of about 27,000 megawatts of wind energy in the SPP portfolio, there were times when the wind towers producing electricity amounted to only around 500 megawatts of the 27,000 megawatts typically available. Natural gas power plants also had issues staying online because of delivery issues, cold weather and a tight supply. Combine those two situations with record-breaking cold weather across the entire geographic region of SPP, electric demand outpaced the generation available.
Benefits for consumers continue
Being a member of the Southwest Power Pool has created many benefits for utilities and their consumers in the region. In times of unplanned outages of generation units in any given area of SPP, they are able to access generation from another area to ensure consumers continue to have power. It has prevented outages in many instances. If a utility’s generation units are unable to run on any given day, for whatever reason (technical malfunction, transmission issues, lack of fuel supply, etc.) they are able to access generation from the Southwest Power Pool to continue the flow of electricity to their consumers. If they were a standalone utility without a shared generation and transmission grid, their consumers would experience an outage until the problem at their generation units was resolved.
Overall, being part of a Regional Transmission Organization like the Southwest Power Pool helps to keep electricity more affordable and reliable for consumers across our region.
