How many lawyers are needed to get enough power for a light bulb?
No, it's not another lawyer joke. It's a question bedeviling Art Brothers, founder and operator of Beehive Telephone, a small phone company based in Wendover and serving residents of some of Utah's most remote desert country.Beehive's 560 customers are scattered over 7,000 square miles near the Utah-Nevada border, northwest Box Elder County and the region near Lake Powell. In 1986, Brothers installed a radio repeater station on top of Grassy Mountain, Tooele County, west of the Great Salt Lake to better serve them.
The repeater is vital to Beehive's service in northwestern Utah; it provides links to the Box Elder County settlements of Park Valley, Grouse Creek and Lakeside.
In fact, according to a May 12 petition filed by Beehive's lawyer, David R. Irvine, an "extensive mineral recovery operation at Lakeside, north of the Southern Pacific tracks . . . cannot be served without the radio links at Grassy Mountain."
The Air Force maintains a two-way radio and microwave tracking base on the mountain, part of its electronic warfare range. Beehive's radio shack - only 16 square feet, not much bigger than a beehive itself - is about 10 yards from the Air Force operation.
Brothers, who lives in Grouse Creek, said he discovered that the Air Force was using diesel generators to power its complex - a costly way to get electricity.
"The Air Force was spending $14,000 a month for electricity," he said. "I thought that was a pretty good chunk of change."
Brothers said he asked Air Force officers if he could use a little of the power - "enough to run a light bulb" - to supply the repeater.
"They said `No, we won't do it,' " he said, indignation registering in his voice.
Then they relented and offered to sell power to him at their cost - 74 cents per kilowatt hour, he said. By comparison, Utah Power's charge for a small commercial enterprise is 5.42 cents per kilowatt hour, plus $4 a month for service.
Rather than pay the Air Force's ridiculous price, Brothers erected solar panels for the repeater.
But he kept mulling over that $14,000 monthly bill.
Brothers asked the state Public Service Commission to let him install a 10-mile power line from the end of the Utah Power line near Lakeside, so Beehive could bring electricity to the Air Force installation on Grassy Mountain. He'd put
See BROTHERS on B2
up the poles, string the wire, charge the Air Force half of what it had been paying to generate power, "pay for the line in a year, and then retire," he said.
"You know, why not?"
Utah Power had other ideas. According to Brothers, a week after he filed the request, a representative of Utah Power called to ask what was going on, and Brothers told the story.
"They (Utah Power) eventually called and said, `We've talked to the Air Force and they'd like us to put some power in there,' " he said.
Evidently spurred by Brothers' request to the PSC, the Air Force contracted with Utah Power, which built a power line onto Grassy Mountain. The Air Force bought the line from the power company and pays Utah Power for the electricity.
"Hell, they would have got it (use of the line, not the power) for free from me," he said.
According to Brothers, the Air Force and Utah Power agreed to let him get electricity from the new line. In return, he dropped his request to make Beehive the Air Force's power company on Grassy Mountain.
"Last fall they got the line built, cut over electricity for the Air Force. And they wired up our radio building."
Brothers removed the solar panels so they could be used for other Beehive operations near Lake Powell.
A meter was installed between the radio building and the Air Force's line; Utah Power was to read the meter, so it could charge Beehive for what little power it used.
But soon afterward, the arrangement went sour.
"Somebody - I'm not sure who - called the (Air Force) guys up there on Grassy Mountain . . . and told them to shut the power off," Brothers said.
Beehive's repeater went dead.
Brothers called Utah Power about the cutoff, and he says the power company responded three weeks later. "They said, well, what they (Air Force representatives) want is a letter from you requesting officially the power," he said.
"We said, `We give permission to anybody in the world to give us power.' We wrote a letter to Utah Power saying, `Hey, you need permission from us, you got it. We'll hold you harmless.' "
That does not sound exactly the same as asking the Air Force for power.
"So the Air Force said, `Drop dead,' " Brothers said.
On May 12, more than half a year later, with no electrons flowing from the new line into his radio, Beehive filed with the PSC a formal "petition for enforcement of electric service agreement."
Its claim says that in 1988, the Air Force, Utah Power and Beehive agreed that the power line would provide electricity to Beehive. "Utah Power & Light has made repeated requests of the Air Force to permit the service connection to be installed as agreed, as has petitioner, but the Air Force has declined to honor the agreement it made," the petition says.
It asks the PSC to order the Air Force to quit interfering with Beehive's right to purchase electricity from Utah Power.
Meanwhile, the solar panels can't be returned to Grassy Mountain because they were stolen after they were installed on Navajo Mountain near Lake Powell.
Clifford Carlisle of the contract law office, Hill Air Force Base, said of Brothers' description of the events, "We don't think that's totally accurate at all."
However, he promised, the Air Force would be meeting soon with Utah Power on the problem.
On Friday, Irvine said he is under the impression that the Air Force wants to resolve the conflict with as little fuss as possible.
Irvine said recent contacts with the Air Force indicate the military may be willing to end the standoff. Asked if he is confident the Air Force would resolve its differences with Brothers, he said, "It'd be pretty damn stupid if it didn't.
"I mean, this is a 100-watt light bulb, after all."