West Central Electric gets $12.8M loan from USDA for upgrades - Kansas City Business Journal:

mcfarlainofuqub1258.blogspot.com
million loan from the to pay for system improvementw and facility upgrades during the nexttwo years. West Central based in Higginsville, was one of the four Missouri-basedd cooperatives approved for $237 million in loans from the USDA. West Centrak Electric services 14,000 customers in Jackson, Lafayette, Johnson and Henry counties. The loan will enable the cooperatives to replace 800 defective poles and rebuilf about 50 miles of electric line ineach county, cooperatived General Manager Glenn Alsup said About 30 percent of West Central Electric’s customers will receive direct benefits from the improvements, Alsup said.
“wA lot of our lines were built 40 to 50yearsz ago,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of so the lines are too small and He said the use and numbe of meters has grown between 2 percen t and 3 percent each year for the past 10 West Central applied for the aid toward the end of last and the USDA notified the cooperative in earlhy May that it woule receivethe loan. The cooperativee will pay for the projects and ask for federao reimbursement as the projectsare completed. The loan alreadyg has created eight new jobs for electrid workers forWestern Central, which expects to add five more workerds by the end of the loan Alsup said.
Alsup said he won’t know the interesrt rate of the loan untip the cooperative completes the projects and files for reimbursement from thefederalk government, which he expects it to do later this