DID BROWNSVILLE SUFFER TO PROTECT PUB'S BOTTOM LINE? BRUCIAK SAYS PUB SOLD 80 % OF ITS ELECTRICITY TO ERCOT GRID AND ALLOWED BLACKOUTS FOR BROWNSVILLE HOMES

 By Juan Montoya

Now the pieces are starting to come together.

The directors of the Brownsville Public Utility Board, which is a member of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), has told some city commissioners that it had to be authorized by the Austin-based board before it could turn on its natural-gas fueled 170 MW Silas Ray plant in the city's West Side.

The plant, built in 1947, is capable of putting out 136 operating MWs and another 34 MWs as backup. Those MWs could have provided enough electricity to the city, Los Fresnos, San Benito, and even Port Isabel to endure the cold weather with energy to spare.

It was only turned on Wednesday morning after elected officials, including Rep. Alex Dominguez, who will take part in the investigation of ERCOT, asked why the plant was not activated. Dominguez said he will be part of the legislature body which will investigate whether it was true that ERCOT  prevented the PUB from activating the plant or whether it is the familiar dodge by the PUB honchos.

This comes on the heels of reports throughout the state that PUB wan't the only one reluctant to fire up Silas Ray and that, in fact, it was one of many in Texas which was not activated because...it would not be profitable to the utility because of the fuel costs – that is the fuel surcharge.

In fact, it wasn't until Wednesday morning that PUB CEO John Bruciak ordered that the plant be activated after three days of Brownsville residents enduring freezing temperatures and three days and nights without lights. The plant is 100 percent owned by the people of Brownsville.

Suddenly it was profitable – or politically convenient ? – to fire up the plant to deflect the spotlight on his piss-poor performance.

During today's PUB/COB press conference, Bruciak admitted that rather then keep the electricity PUB produced here, they sold 80 percent of it to the ERCOT grid and allowed the rolling blackouts for Brownsville. And once the Silas Ray plant kicks in, will they do the same?

Brownsville residents had to deal – and are dealing with – spoiled food in their refrigerators, life-and-death situations by people on electric-powered medical devices, and inoperable traffic lights where cars played a game of chicken at intersections with other desperate drivers to get through. 

With the mayor, the city commission and administration and the PUB board and its top dogs declaring them expendable, it fell to the people to fend for their own.

Statewide, nearly half of the state’s natural gas production has screeched to a halt due to the extremely low temperatures, while freezing components at natural gas-fired power plants forced some operators to shut down. In the case of PUB, the executive directors apparently kept their eye on the bottom line instead of providing life-saving electricity to its ratepayers.

“Texas is a gas state,” said Michael Webber, an energy resources professor at the University of Texas at Austin. While he said all of Texas’ energy sources share blame for the power crisis – at least one nuclear power plant has partially shut down, most notably – the natural gas industry is producing significantly less power than normal.

In other words, PUB would have to operate at a loss if it fired up the plant. But faced with the prospect of mayhem in the streets, freezing elderly and children in local homes, and the impact of employees at local businesses and offices unable to work or produce, it would have been a price worth paying.

After all, Bruciak and his top executives recommended the construction of the Tenaska electric plant to be built at a cost to ratepayers of some $500 million. When their crystal balls proved faulty and there was an energy glut because other plants came online in the region, Tenaska pulled out of the deal. 

That was in 2017, but the ratepayers or the city commission weren't told until three years later. 

The artificially high rates that were approved by the city commission to fund the bonds to build the plant and purchase right-of-way for a natural gas line from Hidalgo County have remained the same. 

Now, with natural gas lines already here to provide natural gas to the coming LNG terminals at the Port of Brownsville, it is doubtful the multi-million dollar right-of-ways will ever be used.

In other words, by following the Bruciak et al recommendations for Tenaska, we literally threw that money down the drain.

That being true, PUB had enough loose cash (the remnants of the $130 million raised by the higher rates for the Tenaska Plant to Nowhere) to pay for the higher fuel charges and have change left over. This would have prevented the hardships our residents endured to maintain PUB's bottom line.

Instead, Bruciak and his cadre of underachieving skinflints earning $300,000-plus each issued a press release today saying that Brownsville would no longer have to endure the rolling blackouts that the rest of the ERCOT-mandated state utilities have to. 

Remember that the BPUB did not give these gents those obscene raises until after the higher rates went into effect. For a job well done?

But try to find one city commissioner who will stand up to these carpetbaggers (Bruciak lives in a condo at South Padre Island and another commutes to San Antonio every weekend) and call them on their abject failures paid by the suffering ratepayers of this municipally-owned utility. You won't.

The former mayor Tony Martinez pushed for the construction of the Tenaska plant and commissioners Rose Gowen and Jessica Tetreau voted in favor of the plant and of the higher rates. Mayor Trey Mendez is now an ex oficio board member of the PUB. Nothing from him, either.

Now, with the Big Freeze fiasco as another laurel on their dubious crown, will anyone on the PUB board or the city commission finally hand them their pink slip and slam the door on their butts as they leave carrying their carpetbags bulging with out gold from the PUB administrative building?