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Doug Bechtel
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A couple of weeks ago we discussed the problems that were identified in our recently completed Long Range Plan. In that OPALCOGRAM I said there were two issues that would drive OPALCO's efforts over the next twenty to thirty years. In that OPALCOGRAM I discussed the first of these issues - the need to upgrade our facilities to provide ade-quate voltage on Orcas Island. This week I want to discuss the other problem that will affect OPALCO in the future.
In the summer of 1992 we did a video survey of the Sumitomo sub-marine cable between Lopez and San Juan. This cable has been in place for 18 years and the survey showed that the Sumitomo cable was suffering from the same problem (although at a much slower rate) as the submarine cable that failed in the spring of 1992. The 1992 survey showed that several of the armor rods that protect this cable had broken.
In the fall of 1994 we repeated this survey and found that the condition of the cable had deteriorated significantly and our consultants expressed the opinion that this cable would fail within two years.
The Long Range Plan looked at several alternate solutions to this problem. These alternatives ranged from leaving the cable alone until it fails (hoping the consultants were wrong), recover this cable and lay it in the Lopez to Shaw crossing like we did with the Furukawa cable, try to stabilize the cable without repairs, or repairing the cable and relaying it in a dif-ferent location in the same crossing.
The cost of these alternatives ranged from nothing (do nothing and cross our fingers), to $2,300,000 (recover the cable, lay it in a difference crossing, and buy a new cable for this crossing). In the middle of the price range was $900,000 to retrieve a portion of the cable, repair the damaged area, and relay the cable in a different location in the same crossing.
When considered, along with all of the other submarine cable needs of OPALCO over the next 20 to 30 years, repairing the Sumitomo cable yielded a lower cost solution by several hundred thousand dollars. Even more important, repair of the cable enabled OPALCO to defer millions of dollars of investment in other cables and facilities for many years.
The Board of Directors has not completed their review of the alternatives available for this cable. The board has indicated that if they decide to go ahead and repair the Sumitomo cable, they want to do it as soon as possible. Pending final board approval, we are developing a plan to repair the cable next spring. We are also refining our cost estimates and looking at alternatives to reduce the cost of this project.
Since the Furukawa cable failure we have installed a sophis-ticated sub-marine cable monitoring system that will alert us very early if there are any problems with the Sumitomo cable. If the cable fails before we can repair it, the failure will not be as catastrophic (or expensive to repair) as the failure of the Furukawa cable. In the meantime, the new submarine cable that was laid in that crossing in the fall of 1993 is in great shape and will be able to meet the needs of San Juan Island if anything should happen to the Sumitomo cable.
Doug Bechtel
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