Related links: Three new members appointed

January 20, 2005

PORTLAND ? Melinda Eden, an Oregon member of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, will chair the four-state energy planning and fish and wildlife mitigation agency in 2005. Jim Kempton, a Council member from Idaho, will serve as vice chair. The Council elected officers for the year this week.

Eden was the Council's vice chair in 2004. She was appointed to the Council by Governor John Kitzhaber in 2003 to finish an unexpired term and was re-appointed by Governor Ted Kulongoski in January 2004. Before her Council appointment, Eden served as a member of the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission. She chaired the commission from 1999 to 2003. Eden was a practicing attorney concentrating in hazardous substances law, and she has previous experience as an Associated Press and newspaper reporter. Eden raises sheep, wheat and wine grapes near Milton-Freewater. She can be reached at 541-938-5333.

Kempton, of Albion, Idaho, was appointed to the Council in January 2001 by Governor Dirk Kempthorne. As chair of the Council's four-member Power Committee in 2003 - 2004, Kempton directed the preparation of the Fifth Northwest Power Plan, which the Council adopted in December. At the time of his appointment to the Council, Kempton was a re-elected five-term member of the Idaho House of Representatives. Kempton holds bachelor's and master's degrees in physics and is a retired U.S. Air Force fighter pilot. He can be reached at the Council's Boise office, 208-334-6970.

The Council is an agency of the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington and is directed by the Northwest Power Act of 1980 to prepare a program to protect, mitigate and enhance fish and wildlife of the Columbia River Basin affected by hydropower dams while also assuring the region an adequate, efficient, economical and reliable power supply.