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Council hears NorthStar water fixes, MDU Resources clarification in public comment
Summary
Staff told the council NorthStar agreed to a system assessment (estimated $135,000), reserve-account funding and service-quality commitments; MDU Resources’ Maddie Tyson clarified corporate holdings and told the committee MDU does not drill for oil.
The committee received updates on small-utility dockets and public comment on Feb. 4. Consumer Counsel staff reported a settlement with NorthStar, a small water utility that has experienced intermittent service-quality problems: NorthStar agreed to fund an initial reserve account (owner seed funding then a portion of rate revenues), to commission a system assessment (estimated cost $135,000) to evaluate and prevent outages, and not to seek recovery of certain outage repair costs from ratepayers.
At public comment, Maddie Tyson, representing MDU Resources (which includes Montana-Dakota Utilities), asked to correct the record about corporate holdings and clarified, "We do not drill for oil," and offered to be available as a resource to the committee.
Brown also summarized recent MDU filings and a settled MDU rate case that reduced an originally requested $9.4 million increase to about $7.3 million under settlement and lowered the proposed ROE; staff said trackers and interim rates complicate month-to-month calculations but are trued up annually.
What happens next: Counsel will continue to monitor NorthStar’s implementation of the settlement terms and will report back to the committee if additional enforcement or rate adjustments are necessary.
