Tracking Legal Events involving Electric & Telephone Cooperatives

Litigation

As non-profit corporation the Internal Revenue Service requires Rural Electric Cooperatives to file an informational return much like a corporate income tax return each year.  These "IRS Form 990s" are public information and Coops are obligate to provide access to copies to interested persons.

A study of these 990s can reveal interesting information about these Coops including things like salaries of executives and ownership of other for profit corporations.  This is a list of the most recently available 990s for White River Valley Electric:

Service Area

Rural Electric Cooperatives provide electrical service to customers within a geographical area know as a "Service Area" or "Service Territory".  These Service Areas often look like highly "gerrymandered" political boundaries and occasionally there will be areas or pockets withing the boundary where the Coop does not provide service like a small town or city serviced by another electric utility.

Within these Service Areas the Coop typically has an effective monopoly with no meaningful competition.

Coops ordinarily publicize their Service Area on their websites.  You can see an approximate map of the area covered by White River Valley Electric on its website:



Coop Website

Most Rural Electric Cooperatives maintain websites but they rarely provide material information about important aspects of their operations.

In fact this failure by a Coop to be forthcoming about its policies involving patronage or capital credits is a red flag that its policies and practices are suspect.

This is White River Valley Electric's website: