POULSBO — The connection between North Kitsap and Bainbridge Island is about to get a little stronger.
Puget Sound Energy (PSE) is in the midst of an upgrade project to replace the power lines and towers between the island and the Kitsap Peninsula across Agate Pass.
PSE gave a presentation on the project during the Oct. 1 Poulsbo City Council meeting to inform the public on its progress.
“All the power serving Bainbridge Island passes through those towers,” said Barry Lombard, PSE’s project manager for the replacement effort. “If we don’t replace them in a timely manner, they are at risk of failure. We need to replace them so that there is no catastrophic failure and all power to Bainbridge is cut.
“Within a week you should see the new poles on either side of the (Agate Pass) bridge.”
The foundation work for four new power poles is now complete. The foundations require around 28 days to cure. PSE will raise the new steel poles next, then attach new cables. The old 115 kV transmission lines will be replaced with newer, higher-capacity lines.
PSE will remove the old towers and restore the construction site on the hillsides of Agate Pass, near Reitan Road.
“The tricky part will be dismantling that steel tower,” Lombard said. “You’ll see a 150-foot crane there. The technique they’ll likely use is hold onto the tower with that crane, and have a vehicle with hydraulic sheers, and move that tower over and lay it down. We will recycle the steel. One of the lines will be energized while they do it.”
The steel lattice towers that currently hold the power lines between the Kitsap Peninsula and Bainbridge Island were built in the 1960s. PSE’s presentation to the Poulsbo City Council stated that both towers have “reached the end of their functional life” and “need to be replaced to ensure continued safe and reliable electrical service to the island.”
“The existing towers do not meet existing codes,” Lombard said. “They were designed 45 years ago.”
PSE considered four options for the towers, including retrofitting the existing towers, replacing the towers with two poles, placing the lines under the water, and placing the lines on four single poles. The option to place the lines over the Agate Pass, as they have been, on four single poles was ultimately selected.
Lombard also noted that the Agate Pass project “sets the stage” for two more PSE projects in North Kitsap. The first is the Port Madison Tap Project that will extend along Lemolo Shore Drive to the Agate Pass towers on the peninsula side. The effort will replace 49 poles along six miles, and upgrade approximately 1.5 miles of transmission line.
“We are in the design phase, and we’ll be in the permitting phase of that soon, and we hope to build that in the summer of 2015,” Lombard said of the Port Madison Tap Project.
The second venture will begin year after the tap project, and take on another six miles from Foss Road, just outside of Poulsbo, to the Miller Bay Substation, and continue to Agate Pass.
“We will be replacing 95 poles and about six miles of transmission line,” Lombard said.
“With those two projects we will be able to benefit 8,000 customers in Kitsap County and 12,000 customers on Bainbridge Island and we’ll add capacity for about 15,000 more customers between Bainbridge Island and North Kitsap,” he said.
