what is whoops 
whoops is a negative slang word used at one time in history for the former washington public power supply system wppss formed in the 1950s to ensure consistent electrical power for the pacific northwest wppss did not succeed on many fronts hence its nickname of whoops understanding whoopswhoops or wppss financed the construction of five nuclear power plants by issuing billions of dollars in municipal bonds in the 1970s and 1980s in 1983 because of extremely poor project management construction on some plants was canceled and completion of the remaining plants seemed unlikely consequently the take or pay arrangements that had been backing the municipal bonds were ruled void by the washington state supreme court as a result in 1983 the wppss had the largest municipal debt default in history early history of whoopsnuclear power became popular in the 1960s when it was perceived as clean and inexpensive wppss or whoops saw this as an opportunity to meet the growing demand for power in its region it scheduled five nuclear power plants financed by a public bond issuance to be repaid with proceeds from the plants the bonds were issued but sales did not meet expectations 1the packwood lake dam its first project ran seven months over the scheduled completion date this was the beginning of wppss s public works problems the construction problems at the plant included cost overruns and poor project management contractors leveraged government inefficiency and overcharged and under delivered this caused safety inspectors to demand more stringent rules which were implemented mid construction by the nuclear regulatory commission nrc as a result much of the project had to be scrapped then redesigned and rebuilt high costs and big troubleat the beginning of the 1980s only one of the five wppss plants was close to complete and to add insult to injury by then nuclear power was found not to be as cheap and beneficial as claimed and public opinion turned against it some cities in the region even boycotted nuclear power before the facilities were up and running cost overruns continued to where more than 24 billion would have been required to complete the work but the low power sales could not cover the deficits construction halted on all but the near completed second plant the first plant again had to be redesigned the washington public power supply system was forced to default on 2 25 billion in municipal bonds the second plant finally became operational in 1984 but it too little too late for investors 2 on christmas eve 1988 a 753 million settlement was reached while some of the system s approximately 75 000 bondholders received 0 40 on every dollar they had invested other bondholders received as little as 0 10 for every dollar they had invested 3special considerationsthe wpps changed into energy northwest in 1999 and the moniker of whoops is now antiquated 4 