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Doug Bechtel
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Several items have stacked up on my desk recently.
Our Lopez substation is nearing completion. Part of the substation
work involves the installation of special circuit breakers that
will help minimize the number of separate islands that are affected
when one island has a problem. Over the next two weeks we are going
to put the circuit breakers for San Juan and Lopez Islands into
operation. At the same time, we will be doing some construction
work that will allow the future installation of one of these circuit
breakers to protect Shaw and Orcas Islands. The installation of
these circuit breakers and the other construction is going to result
in five-hour outages. These will be done between midnight and 5
a.m. as per the following schedule:
San Juan, Brown, Henry, Pearl and Spieden Islands - Friday,
April 15
Orcas, Shaw and Lopez (possibly) - Friday, April 22
We have had several requests recently from people who want to
try our Energy Saving electric rate. The dials on these new meters
are liquid crystal displays and are visible only if you can look
straight at the meter. Our meter readers continuously have to get
into strange convoluted positions to read these meters. We need
to make sure that your electric meters are properly located. If
you are doing any work that will enable us to relocate your meter
at the same time, please give us a call.
We are also having problems with some of our underground construction.
To the extent that we can, we install warning signs near our underground
wire. For various reasons, these signs seem to disappear shortly
after they are installed. If you are going to do any significant
amount of digging, please give our underground location number (1-800-424-5555)
a call so that we can locate our lines for you. If you accidentally
dig up our lines and you haven’t called, you could be hit with a
bill for several hundred dollars in repair costs.
Another area that you can help us with on a regular basis is to
give us a call if you are planning any major street or road maintenance
projects. A couple of times recently, we have gone into an area
to bury our power lines less than a year after the homeowners spent
a lot of money to upgrade their driveways and streets. It would
save us a lot of money and you a lot of frustration if you would
involve us in your planning for these major maintenance projects.
To a lesser degree, the same thing applies if you are going to pave
your driveway or landscape your yard.
A reminder that our new telephone system is installed and operational.
We have many direct dial numbers, so if you routinely call OPALCO,
ask whoever answers for the extension number that you should be
dialing and you can save time by dialing direct to the person you
want to talk to.
I finally got the final report of the Distributed Energy Study that
BPA did for OPALCO, and I will share that with you next time.
Doug Bechtel
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