by Daryl Pederson, line superintendent

The 2025 construction year was a busy one. Our crew installed 5.25 miles of new underground cable and have retired
out nearly 7 miles of old overhead line. The main project in 2025 was around the Bello Lake area, where we installed
much-needed underground and fusing equipment to strengthen reliability and improve outage response.
Over this last winter we completed three overhead conductor upgrades in the Turtle Lake, Effie, and Bigfork areas.
These projects totaled 7 miles.
This year’s main project will be relocating approximately 4.5 miles of underground line along County Road 52 from
the Owen Lake Campground Road to the Horsehead Lake Trail to accommodate the new route for County Road 52.
Additional projects for 2026 include converting the Matt Zimmer Road and MacKenzie Island overhead lines to
underground.
We anticipate installing about 60 new services for new members across our system, along with additional
sectionalizing equipment to improve reliability and speed up outage restoration. We will also complete the replacement
of older hydraulic reclosers with new electronic reclosers. The new reclosers offer more flexibility, allowing us to finetune
settings by area to reduce unwanted blinks and false outages.
Please remember if you see trees down or leaning on or near a power line, please stay away from them and call us. We
will send a crew out to take care of the trees as safely as possible.