[HollyMutual-Announce] Good and bad news

[Mark Derbyshire]

All:

We are still awaiting work to replace the portion of our pipeline that
developed a leak in early May. Since then we have been unable to operate
the Whitehall Well. Likewise we still have several properties cutoff
from the remainder of our system and have no access to Holly Mutual
water. The Piedmont Well is running, but it doesn't have the capacity on
its own to supply enough water, and thus we often lose water pressure
during our scheduled irrigation hours. I very much appreciate everyone
putting up with this mess and sending notes of encouragement.

The big holdup on this project has been Xcel Energy. The Holly Mutual
Board voted to proceed with the final repairs on June 27th. However our
excavator wasn't able to provide an estimate to us until July 8th,
partly because they needed a cost estimate themselves from Xcel. There
is a power pole in the vicinity of where we need to dig, and Xcel
requires it to be properly braced for liability purposes. The Holly
Mutual Board approved the excavator contract immediately on July 8th,
and since then we have been trying to obtain final approval from Xcel
and to get Xcel scheduled to perform the power pole stabilization.

The good new is we were just advised that Xcel has approved and
scheduled their work. The bad news is Xcel can't/won't do this until
August 4th. We are now trying to ensure our excavator is scheduled to
perform their work contemporaneously so we don't lose even more time.
This is frustrating for all of us because we are running a 'public
utility' of sorts, and if Xcel needed us to do something to get their
customers back online, I can't imagine them accepting us dragging our
feet in a similar manner. However Xcel does what Xcel wants - separately
they have managed to delay and stall the construction and completion of
our residential solar array for 13 of the past 14 months. Final work was
completed for that on April 2nd, and we are still waiting for Xcel to
allow us to power up our system. Dealing with Xcel has become nearly a
full-time job in itself.

Sorry,

Mark Derbyshire