Contact: Karl Walquist (775) 834-3891

Sierra Pacific Power has completed a $3.6 million project to improve the electric transmission system that delivers power to the City of Fallon , according to Robert Kofoed, area manager of district operations for Sierra Pacific's Fallon office.

Crews rebuilt portions of one of the two electric transmission lines that serve Fallon and refitted it with larger diameter wire or“conductor,” so it can carry a larger electric load. They rebuilt 9.2 miles of the line from a substation near Lahontan Dam to the intersection of Trento Lane and the Reno Highway , installing 160 new wooden power poles and over 150,000 feet of new conductor.

During the second phase of the project, crews rebuilt another 1.4 miles of the transmission line from Highway 50 near the Carson River south to the Fallon Substation near the intersection of Sheckler Road and Lattin Road .

Sierra Pacific completed the first and second phases of the project in October and December, respectively.

Crews also rebuilt approximately one mile of the transmission line between York Lane and Gummow Drive , where they replaced 23 wooden poles. That portion of the project was completed in March.

“With these improvements, each of the transmission lines that serves Fallon has the capacity to serve the community by itself,” Kofoed explained. “Before the line was upgraded, it didn't have the capacity to keep the entire town in service when an outage affected the other line. Now we havemore flexibility.”

Sierra Pacific has also replaced aging wooden beams in the Lahontan Substation, which should improve the reliability of the substation, Kofoed said.

In 2006, Sierra Pacific will rebuild 1.8 miles of the transmission line that extends from the Ray Couch Substation on Highway 50 south to Sheckler Road along the Sheckler Cut-off. The project was originally scheduled to begin in 2005.

Although the City of Fallon and the Fallon Naval Air Station operate their own electric distribution systems, power is supplied to the city and Navy base by Sierra Pacific's electric transmission system. Sierra Pacific provides both transmission and distribution services to the rest of Churchill County.

###