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The Southeast Alaska Power Agency governing board last week approved moving forward with a remote inspection of the tunnels underlying the Tyee Lake hydroelectric plant. In his report to the board on February 8, SEAPA power systems specialist Ed Schofield explained a remotely operated vehicle would be needed to perform an inspection of the facility’s water conveyance structures. Unlike the dam at Swan Lake, Tyee is a natural lake which is tapped for the facility. Water is conducted to the powerhouse through an intake in the lake into a drop sha...
Wintertime users of the cabin at Middle Ridge will be pleased to learn there's more fuel to burn. With its elevated snowfall and roadway access, during the winter the spot is a popular staging area for residents keen on snowmobiling and skiing. Maintained by the U.S. Forest Service, users will often keep the stove going to warm up, with firewood provided by the Stikine Sportsmen Association. The weather this winter has so far been fairly odd, with warmer than usual December temperatures keeping...
Lack of support from KSTK public radio listeners and businesses in Wrangell may bring ownership changes to the station. A public notice published in last week’s Wrangell Sentinel foreshadows the transfer of radio station assets to CoastAlaska in Juneau. CoastAlaska provides administrative support and other services for seven Southeast public radio stations including KSTK. Reductions in grant revenue and local donations, has made the station’s financial situation untenable. We’re not convinced that moving the station’s operations to CoastAl...
A hydro power agency in Southeast Alaska proposed to cut a customer rebate last week after it increased by nearly $1 million in 2017, but the board shot it down while keeping the possibility of a future slash in play. Trey Acteson, CEO of the Southeast Alaska Power Agency, or SEAPA — which provides most of the power used by Petersburg, Wrangell and Ketchikan — gave two propositions to its board last Thursday: Give $2.7 million in rebate money back to the ratepayers, or cut it by 30 percent to save for future projects and debt. “I think it’s...
In last week’s issue of the Sentinel, the mayor’s selection of SEAPA board alternates was misreported. Voting members will be Stephen Prysunka and Clay Hammer, while alternates will be city finance director Lee Burgess and city manager Lisa Von Bargen. They begin their duties at the power agency’s first board meeting of the 2018 calendar year, on a date still to be determined....
Wrangell's mayor chose the community's new voting and alternate member on next year's Southeast Alaska Power Agency board. Based in Ketchikan, the regional power provider services that community, Wrangell and Petersburg. The three member utilities pool production from their hydroelectric facilities and collectively purchase power from the agency through 25-year power sales agreements, with the current agreement extending through 2034. Decisions guiding the agency is overseen by a governing...
A diesel run powering Wrangell is expected to wrap up on Saturday, according to its electrical superintendent. Clay Hammer of Wrangell Municipal Light and Power explained the 11-day shutdown of the Tyee Lake hydroelectric facility was planned, in order to conduct annual maintenance on the lines. The main goal has been the replacement of 105 marker balls which make transmission lines visible to passing aircraft. That work, being undertaken by Southeast Alaska Power Agency, began on September 7....
Delays to line maintenance prompted by a public employee strike in Wrangell this June will cost a regional power utility an extra $103,000. Southeast Alaska Power Agency (SEAPA) chief executive Trey Acteson presented board members with a change order for the project, which would among other maintenance tasks replace marker balls along the transmission lines connecting Tyee Lake to the grid. Work had been set to start the latter half of June, during which time Wrangell would have had to run on its diesel backups. But an unrelated strike by two...
The governing board for Southeast Alaska Power Agency has approved a draft for next year's budget, as well as a hefty rebate to its member communities' utilities. The decision was supported by a fair financial position for the agency, which supplies hydroelectric power to Ketchikan, Wrangell and Petersburg. In a meeting held at Wrangell's Nolan Center Tuesday afternoon, SEAPA chief executive Trey Acteson explained sales revenues had come in higher than expected. Power sales to Ketchikan, Wrangel...
The city’s annual switch-over to diesel power is scheduled to begin next week, lasting just under two weeks. Electrical superintendent Clay Hammer explained the temporary transition is to allow Southeast Alaska Power Agency – a utility providing hydroelectric power to the communities of Wrangell, Ketchikan and Petersburg – to undertake maintenance projects on its infrastructure. While those lines are down, it falls on municipalities to generate their own power during the interim, with Wrangell Municipal Light and Power firing up its diese...
The next step in a five-year utility improvement process is wrapping up on Church Street. Work on Church Street’s power infrastructure is about one-third of the way through, Wrangell Municipal Light and Power superintendent Clay Hammer reported. “It’s the tough third,” Hammer added, serving the library and post office, as well as feeding much of the residences up the hill from them. Over the weekend the city collaborated with telecoms provider GCI to reroute the last of its cables on the street underground. The weighty cables have built u...
A prototype component to the turbines at Tyee Lake's hydroelectric facility will be put into use this summer. A new needle position feedback assembly will be going into service, replacing the current models. Southeast Alaska Power Agency executive Trey Acteson explained the current assembly units have a tendency to leak, and are experiencing senor failures. The needle position feedback assembly sits atop the control head of the turbine nozzle restoring mechanism, and is a critical part in...
The Wrangell Borough Assembly chose its new city manager on Tuesday, bringing to an end a search to replace recently retired manager Jeff Jabusch. Lisa Von Bargen, currently the community and economic development director for Valdez, was chosen for the position after meeting with residents and city staff last week. She has served in that capacity since 2001, and before that had served five years with the Valdez Convention and Visitors Bureau as its director and tourism manager. Continuing its...
At a special meeting held last week, the governing board for Southeast Alaska Power Agency reconfirmed its approval of a contract for transmission line maintenance through 2019. The bid was awarded at the board’s regularly scheduled February 8 meeting. The scope of work includes bucket truck inspections and guy thimble installations. SEAPA chief executive Trey Acteson explained there were three bidders on the project. Two packets came in comparably, while a third had come in “really high,” he said. The lowest bid was submitted by Elect...
In its first meeting of the new year, the governing board for Southeast Alaska Power Agency looked ahead to political reshufflings at the state and federal levels. Meeting in Petersburg February 8, members of the board learned from SEAPA executive officer Trey Acteson a change in administrations at the federal level could be useful to the agency’s future operations. For example, only two commissioners sitting on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission – which licenses hydropower projects – remain in place since the swearing in of Presi...
Primary construction work at Swan Lake wrapped up last week, leaving full capacity for its hydroelectric dam 15 feet higher than it was at the year's start. The $10,000,000 project was undertaken by Southeast Alaska Power Agency, a utility covering the communities of Ketchikan, Wrangell and Petersburg. Starting about two weeks behind schedule earlier in the summer, workers finished with time to spare with the barge platform used for the project's crane departing last week with general...
Costs for the transition of operations at the Tyee Lake hydroelectric facility may be higher than first expected. Board members for Southeast Alaska Power Agency learned at their September 8 meeting that the unfunded pensions liability for Wrangell employees at the plant were more than double what was estimated when it assumed operations. SEAPA CEO Trey Acteson explained consultants had put the city's liabilities to the state Public Employees' Retirement System at $648,206, which included...
PETERSBURG – The Southeast Alaska Power Agency (SEAPA) board held its regular meeting in Petersburg last week, with board members in attendance from Ketchikan, Wrangell and Petersburg. Much of the meeting focused on project updates and approving the company’s FY17 budget. SEAPA CEO Trey Acteson asked the board to consider a motion to provide one-year notice to end the contract with Ketchikan Public Utilites (KPU), concerning operations at Swan Lake hydroelectric plant near Ketchikan. For Acteson, the move makes sense because it would inc...
Power service went down to southern Southeast Alaska communities, following problems at the Swan Lake dam site on June 8. The hydroelectric dam is one of two major producers utilized by Southeast Alaska Power Agency, primarily servicing the Ketchikan area. This year an effort is being made to raise the dam, a $10 million project which will increase active storage by 25 percent and yield between 6,000 and 12,000 megawatt hours annually. A five-megawatt load bank being used during the project experienced a problem with its cooling circuit, which...
The city power department has begun upgrading Wrangell’s power infrastructure, focusing on priorities approved by the Borough Assembly in March. The upgrades are expected to be part of a long and expensive process, estimated to cost between $3 million and $3.65 million over five years by consultants at Electric Power Systems. Fixes include replacing aging poles along Church Street, Case Avenue, Zimovia Highway and Cow Alley, and replacing the existing H structure and substation supporting the grid. “The guys have been hard at it,” said Wrangell...
At its board meeting in Ketchikan April 28, Southeast Alaska Power Agency agreed to look into the feasibility of putting in a third generating unit at the Tyee Lake hydroelectric facility. The proposal was put forward by board members representing Wrangell and Petersburg, whose communities Tyee predominantly powers. Operating since 1984, the Tyee hydro facility uses water from a natural lake, which is funneled into a drop shaft feeding two generating units that together generate 25 megawatts of power. In the original construction, the...
Power went down across three Southeast communities Tuesday morning, after a downed tree cut lines in Ketchikan. “Evidently there was some wind or storm action,” said Clay Hammer, superintendent of Wrangell Municipal Light and Power. Three sections of transmission line were taken down in the Ward Cove area just before 7 a.m., and with them the entire connection between the three primary communities serviced by the Southeast Alaska Power Agency. The two Swan Lake units went down as a result of the disruption, as did the feed from Tyee Lake, which...
Southeast Alaska Power Agency (SEAPA) board of directors held a special board meeting telephonically to approve a budget increase and construction contract. During a February meeting in Wrangell the board discussed the possibility of completing the Swan-Tyee Intertie Helicopter Pad Project in FY2016. SEAPA staff requested a $937,395 increase to the fiscal year budget to complete the project. The approval of the budget included a $53,165 increase to the overall budget of the project. Voting alternate and electrical superintendent Clay Hammer...
This year's planned expansion of one of its primary hydropower facilities weighed high on the list of priorities for Southeast Alaska Power Agency's governing board when it met in Wrangell late last week. SEAPA CEO Trey Acteson reported most of the major bids had been awarded for components of the Swan Lake dam expansion, a $10 million project which will increase active storage by 25 percent and yield between 6,000 and 12,000 Megawatt hours annually. A civil, mechanical and electrical engineerin...
Wrangell and Petersburg utilities can be expecting a rebate this year from Southeast Alaska Power Agency. This summer the board approved a rebate of $1.5 million for member utilities. A formal award plan was presented at last week’s meeting in Ketchikan on Dec. 10, with $340,563 to go to Wrangell and $372,343 to Petersburg. The remaining $787,093 would be distributed to Ketchikan. Voting alternate and electrical superintendent Clay Hammer represented Wrangell at the meeting, and he explained the rebate was possible in part because of funds u...