Power to the People

Our empire of trees has become an empire of energy. That’s what Hal Calbom maintains in this month’s People + Place. And it’s quite a shift, influencing us as individuals, business people, and as citizens of our communities.

Egg on the Face

CORRECTIONS from CRR February 15 issue

‘Em was born on the plains of Calgary, British Columbia’.

Calgary is located in the Canadian province of Alberta, not B.C. (The Gebert Family Legacy Sponsor Spotlight, error pointed out by Horst Pagel)

Kathy Elam is alive and well. CRR regrets and apologizes for the mistake of reporting her as having passed away. (Elam’s Legacy Sponsor spotlight)

Energy itself, the “juice” that makes everything else run, now dominates the economy and the business conversation. In Longview and the Northwest, thanks to our abundant resource, hydroelectric power, suddenly becoming scarce, short, and expensive, we are suddenly energy poor, not energy rich.

We are now part of the conservation conversation.

In this issue we meet Mike and Michelle Casanover who’ve improved the shopping experience of their Grocery Outlet customers with a simple lighting upgrade that’s a triple win: for them and their customers, for Cowlitz PUD that’s conserving energy, and for the Energy Services Company (known in the biz as an ESCo) that uses utility rebates and new technology to light up the aisles and lower the electric bill.

“We cut about two-thirds of the lighting load,” said Greg Wright, who helped Mike and Michelle implement the new system. “That’s a yearly savings in the thousands of dollars.”

Greg and other ESCos have seen upticks in their own businesses, as the vital conduit between the customer and the utility. “We did eight locations for the Rainier School district and saved them $32,000,” said Wright. “That buys a lot of textbooks and staff time.”

The complicated part of the story is figuring out what we’ll do as a region with ever-increasing demand and a finite supply of power. That’s why all of us keep hearing the conservation message.

“BPA estimates that over the next 20 years 85 percent of our new energy supply will be accounted for by conservation,” Wright said. In other words, the energy we DON’T use.

Get ready to hear the drumbeat in the months and years ahead, and be alert for innovative, practical hybrids like Brad and Rose Link’s cozy lake cabin (see page 25) .

Also in this issue you will learn that HaikuFest 2023 is now open. We will accept entries in all the usual categories (including ‘anything goes’), plus a special one for Centennial-inspired haikus (see page 34). Many thanks to Gary Meyers, in Hawaii, with regular visits to CRR territory, who invented and continues to orchestrate HaikuFest every year, for more years than we can count. But it’s about 17. I think.

Speaking of the Centennial, the City’s official celebration kicked off at a special event at the Merk on Jan. 20. See photos, page 42.

Once Valentine’s Day is past, I always think spring is on the cusp. Of course, we often get snow in late February and March. One can hope! And don’t forget to set your clocks forward an hour the weekend of March 12.

I hope you enjoy this issue. Thanks for reading CRR!

Publisher/Editor: Susan P. Piper

Columnists and contributors:

Tracy Beard

Hal Calbom

Alice Dietz

Joseph Govednik

Judy MacLeod

Gary Meyers

Michael Perry

Ned Piper

Perry Piper

Robert Michael Pyle

Marc Roland

Alan Rose

Alice Slusher

Greg Smith

Andre Stepankowsky

Debra Tweedy

Judy VanderMaten

Editorial/Proofreading Assistants:

Merrilee Bauman, Michael Perry, Marilyn Perry, Tiffany Dickinson, Debra Tweedy, Sue Lane-Koontz

Advertising Manager:

Ned Piper, 360-749-2632

Columbia River Reader, llc

1333 14th Ave, Longview, WA 98632

P.O. Box 1643 • Rainier, OR 97048

Office Hours: M-W-F • 11–3*

*Other times by chance or appointment

E-mail: publisher@crreader.com

Phone: 360-749-1021

On The Cover

Brad and Rose Link at their off-thegrid “cabin” near Cougar, Wash.

Mike and Michelle Casanover, Grocery Outlet owner-operators, in their

Photos by Hal Calbom

Columbia River Reader is published monthly, with 14,000 copies distributed in the Lower Columbia region. Entire contents copyrighted; No reproduction of any kind allowed without express written permission of Columbia River Reader, LLC. Opinions expressed herein, whether in editorial content or paid ad space, belong to the writers and advertisers and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by the Reader.

Submission guidelines: page 36.

General Ad info: page 42.

Ad Manager: Ned Piper 360-749-2632. CRREADER.COM

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