Powerline project nears halfway point

Powder River Energy’s powerline project is nearing the halfway point, replacing aging infrastructure throughout Sundance with modern poles and wire.

“We have service done to the golf course, all of the fairgrounds is complete,” says project manager Rick Gill. “The overhead portion through the fairgrounds is complete as well – all new poles, new wire.”

Underground wire has also already been installed in the area near C&A Meats. The underground portion between the elementary and high schools has been skipped temporarily, Gill says.

“With the four-day school week, we’re going to start attacking it on Fridays when they aren’t in school. So, in the next two weeks, we will be focusing on that,” he says.

“It involves boring underneath the asphalt and then trenching through. The existing utilities have proven to be a challenge.”

The new fiber optic line has added to the utilities already present around the schools, but was not present when the project was designed, Gill explains.

“We’re having to make adjustments as we go,” he says. “There’s a lot of stuff going on in that area and, with the fiber optics being in the ground now, it’s one more thing we have to be cautious of and make sure we don’t damage. Where typically we would drill a hole with the truck to set the pole, now we’re hydrovacing a lot of the holes so we aren’t causing any undue problems.”

Past the schools, all poles are now set along the residential alley south of Cleveland Street as far as the Yesway.

“We’re working on the alley this week between Warren and East Sewell St., just south of the high school. We’re getting poles in and starting to work our way to the west on that alley,” Gill says.

Once work is complete to the end of the alley south of Cleveland, contractors will turn north and cross Cleveland to the alley north of Main Street. While the weather is good, says Gill, contractors are focusing on the more difficult areas of construction.

“We’ve tried to focus on the bigger pieces of the underground portion of the project,” he says. “We’re trying to attack the harder parts first and, as we get through this alley [south of Cleveland], I anticipate the process will speed up a little bit.”

With this in mind, contractors will aim to start work on the steep hillside off E. Main Street near the Sundance rocks – difficult terrain for the trucks – while the weather is good.

So far, Gill says, there have been few hiccups as the project has progressed.

“It’s still challenging to coordinate outages but we’re trying for least impact on the businesses that we’ll be going through,” he says.

“The contractor is doing a great job, keeping their sites clean and trying to keep traffic out of the areas that they are working on. The public has been great too, we haven’t had any issues.”

Gill commends the contractor for interacting with the community as they work and respecting that they carry PRECorp’s reputation with them as they work.

Work began behind schedule due to the wet weather in the spring and early summer. However, the project still continues at pace and PRECorp is hoping to complete it by the end of the year, Gill says.