Crews with Michels Power installed new wires along Highway 153 last fall.
By Marcy Stamper
At 11 a.m. on Monday (Oct. 23), the Methow Transmission Project carried electrical power from Pateros to Twisp for the first time, after two decades of planning and lawsuits that reached the Washington Supreme Court.
The Okanogan County Public Utility District (PUD) hooked the 27-mile transmission line to the Twisp substation last Friday to conduct final testing of the energized line before re-routing the power load on Monday, said Don Coppock, the PUD’s acting general manager.
“We wanted a soft roll-out” of the transmission line, said Coppock, noting that the project has been controversial. “It’s up and functioning — we didn’t need a ribbon-cutting. It’s kind of what we do — we build stuff,” he said.
“We were shooting for the end of August but weren’t in a big hurry,” said Coppock, who said the PUD could have accelerated the process if necessary to transmit power via the new line. The utility was still awaiting some parts for the final connections to the Twisp substation.
Contractor Michels Power, which spent the past two construction seasons installing 254 poles and structures and stringing electric and fiber-optic wires, completed its work a few weeks ago, said Coppock. The PUD is still inspecting Michels’ work and hasn’t made the final payment, he said.
The PUD still has some steps to complete this year and next, including monitoring and documenting the final construction infrastructure. PUD crews are also in the process of inspecting roads and access points for restoration and revegetation and picking up debris, said Coppock. The inspections and mitigation are likely to continue next spring, he said. The PUD has about $150,000 in the budget to complete the final phases of the project.
The 69-year-old powerline over the Loup is still energized and carries some power for the Loup Loup ski area and a handful of customers, but it is no longer transmitting power to the Methow Valley. Power will automatically be transferred to that line in case of an outage or during maintenance, said Coppock.
The Gold Creek substation, once a part of the overall transmission project, has been placed on indefinite hold, said Coppock. The substation was part of the original design for the transmission project because PUD planners had anticipated more growth in the Lower Valley. But when that development didn’t materialize, the PUD shifted priorities as it looked at the best places to spend limited funds, said Coppock.
Planning for a Pateros-Twisp transmission line began two decades ago, but the project was delayed by challenges in court over the environmental impacts of the line and the route itself. But the idea for a powerline that would create a looped system dates to the 1970s, said former PUD Commissioner Ernie Bolz at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Pateros-Twisp line in April 2016.
Ultimately the PUD had to resort to condemning land to obtain easements from a handful of private property owners and the Washington Department of Natural Resources.
The former line over the Loup was built in 1948 and was subject to significant line losses, in which the wires themselves consume some of the energy. It has also been the only route to the Methow Valley, meaning that in an outage there was no way to shift the power load to another line.
