Two major PUD projects proposed in Chelan area

CHELAN - An informational drop-in session was held at the Lake Chelan Chamber of Commerce on March 13 by the Chelan County PUD as an effort to talk to the community about future projects.

A group of PUD staff was available for two hours, to discuss two major projects for the PUD including a new Chelan Dam substation and the Chelan transmission fire hardening.

“The last time we did strategic planning, customers were interested in replacing or rerouting infrastructure to protect it from fire and storms,” said PUD’s Transmission and Compliance director Chad Bowman. Wildfires become a huge problem as it kept on damaging infrastructure. As an example, in 2015, a number of poles burned down and it took over 36 hours to get service back to Chelan.

The PUD “started a fire risk assessment at a county wide basis to look where are the areas in the county that the most destructive fires might occur that might affect our transmission lines,” Bowman explained.

Results from the assessment highlighted Chelan being in top three. According to Bowman, the study findings validate spending some of PUD’s money to fix that problem. “We would put in steel poles instead of wood and we would follow the original alignment,” said Bowman. He also mentioned that the steel pole might be a little bit higher than the current wooden poles.

There are a couple of transmission lines that could potentially get upgraded. “From our perspective it makes a lot of sense to go back to hydro down in Chelan Falls and rebuilt one of those lines in steel all the way to Union Valley which is up by the hospital,” said Bowman.

At the moment the PUD just wants to get the word out on the project as they are on the lookout for input from the community. “We will listen to what the community has to say and maybe next year start a design,” Bowman clarified.

Similarly, PUD wishes engage with the community to evaluate options as they find a location for a new substation and transmission line near the Chelan Dam. Currently there are two substations serving Chelan (Union Valley and Chelan Substations), and they are running out of capacity to serve residents in the south shore area. “By building the new substation it off loads Union Valley and the Chelan Sub,” said Bowman.

The PUD already owns quite a bit of land near the top of the gorge which could be a contender location for the substation. “From an engineering model perspective, we think it is a good location for the substation. The substation is 250 by 250 square and somehow we need to get transmission lines through it,” Bowman explained.

So far four optional transmission routes have been identified by the PUD, however everything is preliminary and PUD has not sited any infrastructure at this point.

To learn about the Chelan Dam Substation project visit: www.chelanpud.org/learning-center/in-your-neighborhood/substations/chelan-dam-substation.  The website will be updated as the project progresses. You can also visit: www.chelanpud.org/firehardening for more information on the Chelan Transmission Fire Hardening project.