Diesel run slated for this month

City officials are urging Wrangell residents to take steps to conserve energy through mid- May.

After a diesel-free winter, Tyee Lake went down for maintenance work Monday. While Tyee will be off-line until May 12— meaning the city will run on diesel fuel imported from Washington State in the meantime— according to borough power and light superintendent Clay Hammer. The borough accumulates a diesel surcharge during this period, which is divided evenly among all consumers. This year’s run is early.

“This is actually a good two weeks ahead of the normal schedule for this, but there’s just so much that needs to be done this year,” he said. “It's anticipated that if we waited until later in the season, we would start to be affecting the preparations for the commercial fisheries and things like that.”

Also unlike past years, this year’s maintenance run at Tyee Lake will also see two additional days to relocate transmission poles near Heritage Harbor at the request of the Southeast Alaska Power Agency (SEAPA) sometime between May 16 and May 24.

“We don’t know when they’re gonna be,” he said.

The poles, which are shared between the borough utility and SEAPA, will be moved a safe distance away from Zimovia Highway and lined up straight, Hammer said.

“That pole line was built back when Heritage Harbor was one great big harbor, and there wasn’t real estate there back when the pole line was built,” he said. “They’d have been put in the bay.”

Officials will also allow diesel suppliers to bid competitively on this year’s fuel, meaning the surcharge could be less than in years past, though officials will have to wait and see what the actual figures are, Hammer said.

“It’s hard to actually nail it down until the time actually comes,” he said. “It ensures us that we do get the cheapest rate possible.”

A wet spring has so far pushed levels at Tyee above where they normally are during this time, Hammer said. The dam there, which supplies power to both Wrangell and Petersburg, added about three feet in a 48-hour period last week, Hammer said.

“That puts us about roughly 30 feet ahead of where we were last year,” he said.

The most effective thing consumers can do is keep an eye on the thermostat, and switch off unneeded lights, Hammer said.