Sustainability

Welcome to Chelan County PUD’s ongoing discussion of sustainability, the topic that has us thinking about how to meet today’s needs and still provide for coming generations.

Our focus has been a growing, evolving pursuit that changes as conditions shift, as information is gathered and as regulations emerge and influence the global approach to sustainability in its various forms.

At Chelan County PUD, this effort took shape in 2007 when an internal team defined sustainability, gathered background on PUD activities and listed potential actions that would support a set of sustainability principles. The working group has agreed that a methodical, steady approach to the project is best, defining and fixing obvious gaps between existing conditions and the PUD’s sustainability principles. Work has focused on

  • improving energy efficiency at the Headquarters complex
  • creating internal recycling programs
  • exploring more efficient water use for hatcheries, parks and buildings
  • improving office efficiency in paper use and printing
  • saving vehicle fuel and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by installing equipment to reduce vehicle idling time

Our policy

We want to build upon our foundation of clean, renewable hydropower by implementing practices that promote sustainability, including measures to increase efficiency, use renewable resources and decrease waste.

2016 - By offering incentives and no- and low-cost measures to customers, Chelan PUD saved enough energy to power 800 homes in 2016. The PUD also installed five electric vehicle charging stations at its facilities for public use. Read our full report.

2015 - The PUD partnered with the Chelan-Douglas Land Trust and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to host Wenatchee’s first-ever mule deer summit.  Also, after a year and half of construction, the completely rebuilt Entiat Park opened to the public on May 22. Sustainability report 2015.

2014 - After a decade of working with state and federal fish agencies and two Northwest tribes under innovative Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) for Rocky Reach and Rock Island dams, the parties to the agreements confirmed Chelan PUD reached no-net-impact at its 10 year check in 2013 (this was acknowledged in the 2014 report). Read the full 2014 report.

2013 - The Sustainability Team acknowledged Chelan PUD customers for embracing energy savings. Customers taking advantage of energy-efficiency programs saved 20,761,200 kilowatt hours of energy in 2013 – enough to power about 1,000 homes in Chelan County. The savings helped Chelan County PUD surpass its 2013 conservation goal by about 40 percent. Read the full 2013 report.