Monthly Archive for June, 2011

VP of External Affairs, Barbara Walz, testifies at Senate committee hearing

Published on June 30, 2011 in Clean Energy, General, Public Meetings and Resource Planning. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee for Clean Air and Nuclear Safety convened June 30 to discuss several of the Environmental Protection Agency’s new air emissions rules for power plants, which are expected to be issued in the near future.  Tri-State’s senior vice president of external affairs, Barbara Walz, was among the expert witnesses who testified at the hearing.

Walz was invited to participate by Senator John Barrasso, R-WY, who serves on the committee.  “It’s vitally important that members of Congress are aware of some of the misguided policies and regulations that the EPA is considering,” Walz said.  “For example, if enacted, the proposed Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology rule could end up costing Tri-State and other electric
utilities billions of dollars over the next few years – and in our case, that would have a direct impact on our member co-ops and their end-use consumers.”

Other witnesses who testified included EPA assistant administrator Gina McCarthy, as well as Bryan Shaw, the chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, who recently said, “This [Clean Air Transport] rule, if we correctly understand its final form, puts at risk the economic future by jeopardizing power generation and those dependent on affordable electricity in Texas.”

Tri-State CEO Ken Anderson visits the Glenn Beck Show

Published on June 24, 2011 in General, Public Meetings, Public Outreach and Renewable Energy. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

This past Tuesday (June 21), Tri-State executive vice president and general manager Ken Anderson accepted an invitation to participate on the “Glenn Beck Show,” broadcast live nationally on Fox News Channel.  The theme of the show, titled “America’s energy under attack,” focused on the increasing number of misguided national energy policies and unreasonable environmental regulations that are detrimental to the U.S. energy industry.

“I was given an opportunity to briefly provide Tri-State’s perspective on some of these national issues that are affecting our operations and our ability to continue to produce and deliver affordable electricity to our member co-ops’ end-use consumers,” Anderson said.  “The opportunity aligned well with our continuing affordability campaign and presented a chance to further champion our cause on behalf of electric co-op consumers.”

Anderson’s fellow guests on the hour-long program included CEOs from the American Petroleum Institute, Gulf Oil and Murray Energy Corp.  “Each industry sector has its own unique concerns, circumstances and challenges,” Anderson said, “but our overriding shared commitment to using domestic resources to the best of our ability in order to protect affordable energy prices for our consumers, businesses and communities came through loud and clear.”

Line crews focus on safety as they tackle live-line training exercise

Published on June 22, 2011 in General and Transmission. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Tri-State line crew members scale tower 482 of Story to LRS line.

This week, Tri-State line maintenance personnel were engaged in both classroom and hands-on live-line training exercises at the Brush, Colo., field facility and on nearby energized transmission lines to put into practice what they have learned.

As always, the exercise focused on safety with a detailed “tailgate” briefing on site provided by Clint White, transmission field training specialist based in Ogallala, Neb., and Jim McDonald, a contractor to Tri-State specializing in live-line training.  This yearly exercise was also held last week in New Mexico for the association’s maintenance south crews and is scheduled to be held next week near Salida, Colo. for maintenance west personnel.

The tailgate meeting spells out the specific task to be accomplished by each crew member and points outs safety hazards such as fall protection and maintaining clearances from live lines and energized equipment.  In addition to the crew that scales the tower and assembles the equipment needed to perform the maintenance activity, another crew is needed on the ground to direct the procedure and shuttle equipment via hand lines up to the crew members above.  Another team is needed to stand by on a man lift in position aloft to assist and perform emergency rescue if required. Continue reading ‘Line crews focus on safety as they tackle live-line training exercise’

Trapper Mine featured in national industry publication

Published on June 17, 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Tri-State’s Craig Station in northwest Colorado relies on two sources of coal to fuel its three units:  Trapper Mine, which is adjacent to and was developed for the plant, and ColoWyo Mine, which provides the balance of the coal by way of railcar from a mine located in member co-op White River Electric’s service territory.

Trapper and its historic 2006 landslide, which was a catalyst for new equipment, processes and production at the mine, was the subject of a recent feature article in the industry publication “Coal Age.”  Following is an abridged version of the lengthy feature story.

Trapper Mine doubles production with a new fleet of equipment

Not long ago, Trapper Mine was almost entirely dependent on its three identical draglines for all of its overburden removal needs.  Following a massive landslide in October 2006, Trapper redeveloped its mining plans and is now producing more coal with a mixture of new mobile surface equipment and draglines than ever before in its long history. Tri-State is a part owner of the Trapper Mine, and 100 percent of its coal is shipped to the adjacent Craig Station.  Trapper is contractually committed to mining more than 2.3 million tons per year through 2020, which is why the mine has purchased and deployed a more flexible mobile surface mining fleet.  Craig Station stacks Trapper’s coal and blends it on site.  “We work closely with Tri-State and communicate what we’re doing as we learn what they need on a daily basis,” said Stephen Hinkemeyer, Trapper Mine’s production and engineering manager.

100 year slide

On the morning of October 8, 2006, following unprecedented amounts of rain, Trapper experienced what the Colorado Geologic Survey classified as the third largest landslide in Colorado history.  In seconds, roughly 225 to 250 acres of the mountain — more than 35 million cubic yards — suddenly slid about 400 feet, covering haul roads and exposing coal blocks and everything else in its path to an average depth of 100 feet.  Trapper had a couple of dozers, drills and a Cat 5130 in the pit.  As the ground stabilized, Trapper employees found one generator that had been tossed around, tipped over and was raised 80 feet into the air.  Miraculously, nobody was hurt.

Fear of future landslides led Trapper to partner with a geotechnical firm and redouble its surveying efforts to figure out why that specific area had failed.

Prior to the slide, Trapper’s remaining reserve base was approximately 14 million tons.  However, the slide covered 10 million tons of those reserves.  Under contract to make deliveries to the Craig Station, Trapper had little choice but to actually mine in the slide area.

Slide hastens truck-shovel move

With stripping ratios growing prior to the landslide, Trapper had already begun evaluating the transition to a mobile stripping fleet and had begun using truck-shovel pre-stripping operations ahead of the draglines.  To fund the purchase of the trucks, loaders and necessary equipment, Trapper developed a workable mine plan and negotiated an agreement with Tri-State and the mine’s other owners that significantly increased production under long term contracts.

The purchase of new surface mining equipment, including a Le Tourneau L-2350 front-end loader with a 53-cubic yard bucket and four Komatsu 830E haul trucks, allowed Trapper to get back 10 million tons of reserve covered in the slide area and more than double overall reserves, since there are areas with coal that’s too deep for draglines to access.

Today, Trapper mines down to the L seam with the mobile equipment.  The draglines follow behind, picking up the M, Q and R seams.  Shovel cuts dig down the hill at a 7,100-foot elevation in 30-foot drops.  Trapper takes the slide material first with mobile equipment, then moves the dragline down the hill behind after it removes the material.

Once on the main block of the landslide, Trapper’s geo-technical analysts determined that, because of the thickness of the seams, the mine should be able to recover more than 50 percent of the affected coal.  In practice, however, Trapper is actually recovering about 75 to 80 percent of that coal because as it slid, it moved almost in unison.

Nucla-Sunshine line construction in full swing

Published on June 16, 2011 in Transmission. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Construction on the 51-mile, 115-kilovolt Nucla to Sunshine Substation (near Telluride, Colo.) transmission line is in full swing according to Pat Dille, transmission project manager. This long-delayed project — due to landowner concerns — ramped up for its second year of construction activities early in May and is slated for completion in the fall of 2012.

Dille noted that contractors recently took delivery of the first 30 reels of underground power cable that will be used on the Specie Mesa portion of the project. A total of 10 miles of the line will be located underground to comply with the wishes of local landowners.

The construction timeline calls for five miles of underground cable to be trenched, buried and energized by the end of this year’s construction season. The other five miles of underground will be completed and energized in 2012. Along with those five miles of underground cable, the on-site construction crews expect to complete 19 miles of overhead line on the project this year.

“Our goal this year is to complete the line section from Norwood to Wilson Mesa,” Dille said. “Next year, in addition to building several substations along the line corridor, we expect to complete the final segment of the line from Wilson Mesa to the Sunshine Substation.”

Tri-State has contracted with Great Southwestern Construction Co. for the overhead line construction of the line and General Cable/Silex Co. for the underground line construction work.

The new power path is vital to serving increasing loads in the Telluride and nearby southwestern Colorado communities served by Tri-State member co-op San Miguel Power Association (Nucla, Colo.). It will replace a 69-kilovolt line that was originally constructed in 1948 and is at the end of its useful life.

Tri-State contributes to nation’s expanded solar integration

Published on June 14, 2011 in Clean Energy and General. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , .

America’s electric utilities are ramping up their use of solar power – and not just in the sunny Southwest – although Tri-State’s recent integration of 30 megawatts from the Cimarron Solar Facility is located in the Land of Enchantment.  That was one of the principal findings of the new 2010 Utility Solar Rankings report recently released by the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA).

SEPA’s report identified the Top 10 U.S. utilities that added the most new solar power to their systems last year.  The highest ranked cooperative utility on the list is Tri-State, which ranked sixth in the nation after integrating 30 megawatts of power into its generation portfolio from the Cimarron Solar Facility in northeast New Mexico.  The Cimarron plant is the largest solar PV project by an electric cooperative and one of the largest facilities of its kind.

Tri-State is the sole purchaser of the power produced at the photovoltaic facility, which is owned and operated by Southern Company and Turner Renewable Energy.  The plant consists of 500,000 modules – each measuring two-feet by four-feet – aligned on a 250-acre site within the service territory of Tri-State member system Springer Electric Cooperative.

Altogether, the Top 10 utilities reported that they added 561 megawatts of new solar capacity in 2010, an increase of 100 percent over 2009.  Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), in northern California, led all utilities in the most new solar energy added to its portfolio with a total of 157 megawatts.

EPRI touts Tri-State river study at Nucla Station

Published on June 10, 2011 in General. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

In a recent article published in the Electric Power Research Institute’s “EPRI Journal,” the world-renown Palo Alto, Calif.-based research and development organization touted the successful results of a study that it was hired to conduct on behalf of Tri-State’s environmental team to assess the effects of thermal discharge at the G&T’s Nucla Station in southwest Colorado.

During a 1999 permit renewal assessment, the state permit writer noted that although the river was classified as a cold water environment with a temperature standard of approximately 68 degrees, Nucla Station had a warm water effluent limit of 86 degrees. This contradiction in water temperatures triggered an extensive study and potential compliance issues at the plant.  Over the next several years, Tri-State’s environmental team conducted temperature and aquatic life studies to gain a better understanding of the river’s ecosystem.

Nucla Station, Nucla, Colorado

At a 2006 hearing, the various state agencies involved agreed with Tri-State’s assessment that the segment of the river near Nucla Station was a natural temperature habitat transition zone. In addition, the agencies required Tri-State to conduct further studies to determine if the station’s discharge was impacting the aquatic community and what the appropriate temperature habitat classification should be for that section of the river. EPRI assisted with that portion of the study.

In later years, the project team focused on field sampling aquatic biological populations and monitoring river temperatures.

In 2010, Tri-State personnel met with state agencies during a special hearing. Based on the study results, the state agencies agreed that there was no negative impact on the aquatic community from Nucla’s thermal discharge and that the unique ecosystem surrounding the plant merited site-specific standards.

Also, Colorado’s State Water Quality Control Commission determined that the section of the river downstream from the plant should be reclassified as warm. As a result of this study, a new methodology exists to assess thermal discharge effects on a variety of rivers.

San Miguel River

In addition to the benefits of successfully having a section of the San Miguel River reclassified, Tri-State avoided the potential cost of installing a chiller to cool the plant’s thermal discharge if higher temperature standards were imposed for the river.

Tri-State personnel involved in the San Miguel River water assessment study were Chantell Johnson, senior environmental planner, Chris Gilbreath, water, waste & EMS compliance manager, Patty Morgan, chemistry/environmental supervisor and Mark Muniz, environmental/water treatment coordinator.

Colorado students kick off youth tour with Tri-State visit

Published on June 9, 2011 in General and Public Outreach. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Twenty-five Colorado high school students were at Tri-State’s headquarters Thursday to learn about electricity and electric co-ops. The students, who hail from areas served by electric cooperatives throughout the state, are on their way to Washington, D.C. to take part in the annual Electric Cooperative Youth Tour.

Jonathan Thornton, Tri-State strategic communication specialist, provided an overview of electric cooperatives to youth tour participants.

While at Tri-State, the students participated in a “co-op 101″ presentation and put their newly gained knowledge to the test with a group project involving the construction of a miniature electric cooperative system. The group also spent time in downtown Denver, touring the state capitol and seeing the sights of the city.

While visiting their nation’s capital city, the students will gain further insight into the roles electric cooperatives play in their communities and a personal understanding of American history and their roles as citizens. The Electric Cooperative Youth Tour has brought high school students to Washington, D.C. every June since the late 1950s. Students compete for this unique opportunity and are selected for the program by their local electric cooperatives.

We believe in affordable electricity

Published on June 6, 2011 in General and Public Outreach. 0 Comments Tags: , .

At Tri-State, we believe in the value of electricity, in the importance of keeping it affordable and fighting to protect the financial security of families, businesses and communities across the West by working against unreasonable regulations and misguided policies that threaten the future of affordable electricity.

That’s the essence of the association’s ongoing, comprehensive campaign focused on keeping electricity affordable for its member systems and their electric co-op member-consumers throughout Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Nebraska.

This week, that message is being further communicated directly to end-use consumers across the widespread member system service territory when more than a half-million six-page print inserts run in 117 newspapers throughout the four states.  The piece highlights and reinforces some of the main messages from Tri-State’s current awareness/affordability campaign, using some of the images from the print ads that have been running in regional publications throughout the first half of this year.

The newspaper insert also introduces the public to www.keepelectricityaffordable.org – a recently launched Web site that was developed by Tri-State and endorsed by the four local statewide associations – and provides a business reply postcard for interested consumers to sign up for future information. Continue reading ‘We believe in affordable electricity’

Tri-State marks 59 years of providing consumer-owned power to the region

Published on June 3, 2011 in General, Public Meetings and Resource Planning. 0 Comments

Tri-State, and of course its workforce, still maintains that youthful glow after 59 years of providing wholesale, cost-based, reliable power to a diverse membership of electric cooperatives and public power districts.

The G&T owes its many milestones of success to a dedicated group of electric cooperative representatives who got together in the early 1950s at the Plains Hotel in Cheyenne, Wyo., to work out a plan to form a wholesale power supplier.  

Dubbed with the catchy name, “Tri-State” for the Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming systems it would serve, the association was formed to manage its members’ hydropower contracts with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and build the power lines, substations and generating stations that would soon be needed to serve a growing membership.

Former board chairman, Hub Thompson (right), presides over a Tri-State annual meeting held at Little America in Cheyenne, Wyo., in the late 1980s.

The association operated with just a small staff of employees until the early 1970s when the first lines were built and several small peaking power plants were constructed in eastern Colorado to meet growing irrigation loads.

The first Tri-State office opened in Loveland, Colo., in the early 1960s. Later it would be headquartered in Denver, Northglenn, Thornton and finally moved to its current Westminster digs in 1997.

With a few exceptions, the association has witnessed a steady and robust growth throughout its nearly 60 years, but there is no doubt that two key events led to its present-day emergence as one of the premier consumer-owned power suppliers in the West. 

The first of those pivotal events was the G&T’s 1992 acquisition of a substantial portion of the assets of Colorado-Ute Electric Association and the second major milepost occurred in 2000, when Tri-State merged with Plains Electric G&T.

The Colorado-Ute action added 10 new Colorado co-ops, 508 megawatts of capacity and hundreds of employees from the former Montrose, Colo.-based power supplier. The merger with Plains Electric of Albuquerque, N.M., added 12 New Mexico members to Tri-State, the 245-megawatt Escalante Generating Station (near Prewitt, N.M.), significant transmission assets, 128 megawatts of additional purchased power from the Western Area Power Administration and most of the former Plains Electric workforce.

Documents finalizing the 1992 acquisition of Colorado-Ute assets by Tri-State are signed at a Denver law office.

Today, the Tri-State employs approximately  1,200 people in four states, has owned or leased capacity at 16 generating plants – including two utility-scale renewable facilities – and holds assets of $3.8 billion.