Even with the drama surrounding the recent move by the Southeast Alaska Power Agency to end an operation and management agreement with Thomas Bay Power Authority, the manager of the Tyee Lake Hydroelectric project, TBPA has one silver lining among the clouds this month.
In the early 1970s the communities of Wrangell and Petersburg ran on diesel exclusively – a costly proposition even in that decade. The licensing process and planning for the Tyee Lake tapping project began in 1974 and was undertaken by Harrison Western Corporation.
The site, at the time, was a roadless area surrounded by mountainous peaks and pristine nature 40 miles southeast of Wrangell. The project comprises a powerhouse with 10 megawatt generators, utilizes a 7,100-foot flow tunnel and a 1,120-foot vertical shaft tapping into the lake.
In 1982, Harrison Western built a camp for workers building the facility that included a cafeteria, food service workers, and cabins for the crew and staff to live in during the duration of the job. A company landing strip, which is still used to this day, was also a part of the construction site. A DeHaviland Beaver aircraft was used to shuttle light materials and workers to the project, with heavier equipment being barged via Bradfield Canal from Ketchikan and elsewhere.
The next year, civil, mechanical and underground construction was all a part of the project, with more than 150 workers taking part. The crews advanced over 7,000 feet into the quartz diorite mountain using a drill jumbo and averaged 35 feet per day using the drill and blasting methods.
The project was finished in 1983 and began operation serving Wrangell and Petersburg in early 1984.
Wrangell Borough Assembly member Bill Privett was a signatory to the documents that allowed for the “flipping of the switch” to turn off the diesel generators and turn on the link to the Tyee facility.
“Back in 1974, the city fathers of Wrangell and Petersburg collectively decided to come together, for political reasons and to give more clout to Southeast by joining together in a hydroelectric facility,” Privett said.
According to Privett, Wrangell and Petersburg had a maximum capacity of 7.4 megawatts in 1974 – and a Thomas Bay project would have only supplied 10 megawatts – not enough to grow industry in the region.
“That was the maximum during the summer season with everything plugged in and running,” Privett added. “So, it was unrealistic to assume we could go anywhere with that original idea, and so, what was the Thomas Bay project became the Tyee Lake project.”
In identifying Tyee as the site for the project, Privett said the reasons behind its selection were obvious.
“It was close and we would still have to build the same amount of transmission lines in the Thomas Bay to Wrangell model as the Tyee to Petersburg setup,” Privett said. “The difference in costs were also huge with Thomas Bay costing in excess of $250 million in the money of those days, versus $35-40 million for Tyee.”
The Tyee project was eventually completed with a bill totaling nearly $140 million.
Don Koenigs, who was Privett’s contemporary in Petersburg during the formation of the project, said the focus on changing from diesel shaped lower rates for ratepayers.
“My recollection is that the interest in getting into a long-term entity came about when we joined forces and were encouraged by Rep. Ernie Haugen to seek alternative energy,” Koenigs said. “We focused on hydro as the alternative to diesel. That said, we had no clue what the project would be or cost, so we formed TBPA to meet that goal. The community came together and it ultimately brought us a project that benefited both Wrangell and Petersburg. The goal was to own the project, even if it was jointly. We were paying 9.5 cents per kilowatt-hour for diesel, so after we went to hydro, ended up with a much lower rate. Life would be miserable if we didn’t have lower cost hydropower.”
The original plan for the project called for a fall-pipe to run along the face of Mount Tyee from Lake Tyee. Eventually, that changed to a lake tap and the current system in use by TBPA. During the same period, Ketchikan began pursuing Swan Lake, with Kodiak and Solomon Gulch pushing for their own projects as well – a move which led to the Four Dam Pool arrangement between the four power authorities in the region.
Privett also elaborated about the accumulated saving Wrangell and Petersburg have experienced since the transition from a diesel-only community to a hydropower user.
“In 2000, the Juneau Empire called me and asked what was the most important thing to happen in the last century in Wrangell, and I told them it was clearly the Tyee generation plant,” Privett said. “It was our sister city fathers at the time who had the foresight to create an entity that spawned a resource that we have taken advantage of for 38 years. If you look at the savings to the average person, per kilowatt hour, it’s in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
TBPA’s general manager, Paul Southland, said that the project originally began as a far larger idea than just the facility at Tyee Lake and that without the power generation capacity we have now, electrical users from both communities would feel a hard pinch in the wallet.
“In ‘74 the communities started planning for a hydroelectric facility in Thomas Bay but after negotiations with the legislature, it was determined to be too large for the needs of Wrangell and Petersburg and they transferred all their energy to developing the Tyee Lake project,” Southland said. “Without the Tyee hydro, we’d be burning diesel 24-7 and it would be very expensive for ratepayers. The last estimate of cost to run on diesel in Wrangell is 36 cents per kilowatt-hour.”
Wrangell currently pays a debt-component of 6.8 cents per kilowatt-hour using hydroelectric generation, with ratepayers seeing an additional amount of up to 5.8 cents added, for a total possible rate of 12.6 cents per kilowatt-hour.
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