Drafter
Clerk 10/22/2009
Title
AN ORDINANCE authorizing execution of a twenty-year agreement with the city of Seattle's City Light department for the sale of renewable power and environmental attributes of power generated at the West Point wastewater treatment facility and other related agreements that are necessary or convenient to establish and operate the power plant.
Body
STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. The waste treatment division of the department of natural resources and parks operates a wastewater treatment facility, West Point Treatment Plant ("West Point"), within the city limits of Seattle, Washington.
2. West Point utilizes wastewater treatment methods that include anaerobic digestion as a part of the process, a product of which is usable renewable energy in the form of greenhouse-gas neutral methane gas ("digester gas").
3. A long standing energy and environmental policy of King County is to develop waste to energy technologies to the maximum extent that is cost-effective for the valuable purposes of minimizing waste streams while maximizing energy efficiency and use of renewable energy.
4. The wastewater treatment division successfully operated an efficient digester gas powered electric generating facility with cogeneration heat recovery capability at West Point from 1984 until 2006. This facility was interconnected to Seattle City Light's power system and King County sold the resulting electric utility power from this plant to Seattle City Light.
5. Due to its age, the wastewater treatment division has planned for the replacement of the electric generating facility, funded in part by the recently available increased value of renewable energy and renewable energy attributes sales, as well as by a grant from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, both of which recognize and monetize the environmental benefits of this facility.
6. Leveraging the aforementioned added revenue streams to offset costs incurred to replace the ...
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