In the News: American Public Power Association highlights BPA pollinator work in podcast

The American Public Power Association featured on their Public Power Now Podcast a new spatial awareness tool that measures characteristics associated with pollinator habitat in the Bonneville Power Administration’s rights-of-way and near facilities. Developed by BPA’s Nick Johnson, environmental protection specialist and member of the agency’s Pollinator Workgroup, the tool helps inform decisions on a variety of transmission-related projects, including large-scale infrastructure upgrades, new interconnection requests, line rebuilds and maintenance on existing facilities.

See the June 2023 article “New data modeling project maps and ranks pollinator habitat within BPA service territory” for more information.

As Johnson describes on the podcast, pollinator benefits wildlife while also providing opportunities to keep costs for BPA and like utilities down.

“A lot of times you can find processes that also save entities money . . . that also support local wildlife populations like pollinators,” said Johnson. “Utilities have found promoting certain types of vegetation that are lower growing provides those floral resources for pollinators that are also cheaper to maintain.”

To learn more, tune into APPA’s Public Power Now Podcast.