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OPD To Participate In Regional Transmission Line

By Vernon Robison
Moapa Valley Progress
Submitted April 23, 2008


The Overton Power District (OPD) Board of Directors voted, on Wednesday, April 16, to accept an agreement to participate in the continued planning of a regional power transmission system. The system would carry over 300 megawatts of power from the Mead substation near Boulder City up to the Tortoise substation near Moapa, connecting in with Overton Power system, and then continuing on into Lincoln County.

“This line will bring a good chunk of our power from the marketplace where it is bought and sold right up into our system,” said OPD General Manager, Delmar Leatham.

Currently the OPD power is transmitted over lines owned by Nevada Power Company. The OPD pays Nevada Power over $700,000 per year to transport its power over those lines. “If we take those same dollars and put it to debt service on this project, we can own the line and transport the power on that line,” Leatham said. “That is the intent of our participation.” The project has brought several entities together by agreement into an organization called the Silver State Energy Association (SSEA). This organization consists of the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA), Lincoln County Power District, Boulder City and the OPD.

The OPD board was considering whether to approve the district’s participation in the next stage of the project which is to conduct the necessary environmental assessments and secure the appropriate permits from the Bureau of Land Management to begin building the line. This permitting process is expected to cost a total of $2.6 million over the next three years. Under the proposed agreement, the OPD would be obligated to pay 42% of that cost, roughly $400,000 per year, over the next three years.

After the permits are obtained, the OPD board will revisit the idea of whether it wishes to participate in the final cost of engineering and construction of the line. “By agreeing to this stage, we aren’t obligated to participate in the next stage,” Leatham said. “When the time comes, we can look again and see if we want to continue to pursue this.”

If the OPD chose not to participate in the next stage, it would be fully compensated for the funds it had contributed to the project up to that point, Leatham said.

But Leatham was relatively certain that the project would be a benefit to the district to see to completion. “I’m comfortable with the SNWA’s obligation for pumping load into Lincoln county, that with us and SNWA we will see the line built,” he said.

OPD Board Member, Mike Fetherston made a motion to approve the proposed agreement. The motion carried with a unanimous vote of the Board.

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