A good customer

We're encouraged by the community effort to secure the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. more Bonneville Power Administration power.

Even at partial capacity, CFAC's payroll is important to this community as the plant nears its 50th anniversary in Columbia Falls.

Doug Grob said it best.

"The federal dams were built in the Pacific Northwest before there were people here to use the power," Grob, a Flathead Electric Cooperative board member, said during a regional discussion with BPA officials last week. "The aluminum plants took that power and helped pay the cost of building those dams."

CFAC has always been a good customer of the BPA. Unlike other smelters, which have gone bankrupt, leaving the BPA holding the bag, CFAC has made its payment obligations and continues to do so.

The plant certainly isn't the most modern, or the most profitable. We realize that.

But it probably has some of the best people a company could ask for working there—hard-working folks who squeeze every bit of efficiency out of it that they can.

Perhaps, for that reason alone, the BPA should consider CFAC's request.