Wilson reconductored approximately 50 miles of wire and replaced five lattice towers during this 220kV reconductor project to meet transmission line remediation criteria. Wilson’s crews worked diligently through an extremely active bird nesting season and completed this project on schedule, under budget and without major incidents.
The project’s success was highly attributable to careful coordination between Wilson crews, project owner environmental monitors and local governing agency officials.
Throughout the life of the project, project owner monitors identified more than 150 active bird nests on the line section Wilson was installing. Wilson developed and implemented over 30 different buffer reduction scenarios to work around them.
Ultimately, the identification of an active Golden Eagle nest forced Wilson crews to demobilize from the project site and return after the fledging of this nest. Yet, Wilson crews were so far ahead of the scheduled completion date, that there were two months of float available to wait for this nest to fledge.
The technical scope of work included the removal of approximately 50 miles of existing 1033 kcmil Curlew ACSR 54/7 and three-phase single conductor, including about 50 miles of two 1/2" steel overhead ground wires.
After the lines were removed, Wilson installed 50 miles of 636 kcmil Scoter ACSS/TW type 23 22/7 three-phase single conductor and two ½” EHS steel OHGW.