PUD commissioners discuss joint transmission line

EPHRATA — As of now, the Grant County PUD will spend an estimated $4 million as its part of a joint project to build a new transmission line from the Wenatchee area to a substation near Quincy. The partners in the project have until the end of November to opt out.

The other partners are the Chelan County and Douglas County public utility districts, and the Bonneville Power Administration. Grant County PUD already has spent about $567,072 on its part of the project, said Rod Noteboom of the PUD.

Total project cost is estimated at $23,972,410 - which is about $5 million more than the original cost estimate in 2016. The project was first proposed in 2004, with an agreement reached in 2012. “We had a target date for energization of the line (project completion) by 2015. That was very optimistic, obviously,” Noteboom said.

“One thing we that all learned, especially Chelan, Douglas and Grant (PUDs), is that when you do something jointly with Bonneville (Power Administration), it changes everything. Because you have to obey all the federal (regulations) that you don’t normally have to work with when we build things by ourselves. So it makes a lot of things more complicated, more time-consuming and more expensive when you’re working with Bonneville. But they’re also paying for almost half of the amount of line so we definitely want to work with them.”

The new line connects the Columbia substation near Quincy with a facility north of Rock Island Dam. Commissioner Larry Schaapman asked about the benefits to Grant County PUD. Noteboom said recent upgrades to Grant PUD facilities made problems worse on other parts of the system to the north, including parts belonging to BPA. “Our connection with Columbia (the substation line belonging to Bonneville) is contingent on us fixing those problems.” Because all four agencies are having trouble with various parts of the line, the joint project will allow each to fix its problems more cheaply than if each tried to work alone, Noteboom said.

Because the project is over budget, each participant has the option to pull out, Noteboom said, but so far all four agencies are saying they will continue. The opt-out period started Oct. 9 and will end the last week of November.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.