OPALCO at Sea, Replacing the Submarine Cable

— by Margie Doyle —

Barge laying OPALCO submarine cable, with western shores of Lopez Island in the background

Personnel, mechanics and planning — were three more boring concepts ever entertained?

Yet the day-in, day-out, years-long planning by dedicated, expert personnel into the esoteric and remote mechanics of marine cable installation, fiber-optic transmissions and battery insulation, among other topics are playing out in the waters between Lopez Island’s Otis Perkins Park and San Juan Island’s Pear Point to ensure uninterrupted power and telecommunications service for the next 50 years.

OPALCO hosted a tour of the cable installation for members of the public and our public servants earlier this week, to show them first-hand the work that is being done by islanders and international subcontractors to replace the cable.

OPALCO held a “naming” contest for the 13,596 feet of submarine cable that will operate at 69 kilovolts in the crossing between Lopez and San Juan islands. On board the Monday morning tour to the installation site were contestants Evangeline O’Sullivan, who submitted the name “Eel-ectra” for the cable, and Rick Markov, who offered “Opalctopus.” OPALCO chose the name “George” submitted by Rex and Lisa Guard to “personalize” the stretch of cable in honor of 34-year OPALCO veteran George Goff.

Jeff Morris’ boat “Halcyon” cruised to the spot with the contestants and with OPALCO staff Nancy Loomis, Travis Neal, Jay Kimball and Krista Bouchey, and others. The trip back was made aboard Chris Betcher’s JenJay diving boat, “Jenny B.”

OPALCO submarine cable will emerge at Pear Point on San Juan Island.

The project laying both power and fiber cables is one thing, but before that happens, the previous cable had to be removed. And before that could happen, CenturyLink had to remove the sections where its cable had intermingled with the OPALCO cable, as discovered when looking for the 2013 break in CenturyLink’s cable. (That break turned out to be closer offshore to San Juan Island).

After CenturyLink replaced its cable in August, OPALCO began removing its old cable in September, under orders from the Department of Natural Resources, which feared that the old cable would rust and lead to a leak of the mineral oil inside the cable housing. Most of the mineral oil had been pumped out of the old cable over the last six months, but all environmental precautions are practiced. The new cable uses 2.6 miles of “super-armored” submarine cable, manufactured by Sumitomo USA.

A glimpse of the barge at sea shows two tugs holding it in place. Also holding it in place are six anchors which step-by-step advance the barge to the shores as it brings up the old cable in 30-foot sections. Then the journey is repeated as the new cable is spooled from the barge and threaded down to the ocean floor, guided by cameras, divers and Remote-Operated-Vehicles (ROVs).

Buoy in foreground marks one of six anchors, holding the barge on course as it unspools the cable between San Juan and Lopez Islands

On the San Juan side, the new cable will be unspooled off the barge and fed up to the substation atop the bluff above Pear Point. As the barge stair-steps its way across to the Lopez shore, the new cable lies on the channel floor at a depth of 280 feet. At its terminus on Lopez Island, the cable is pulled through a 24-inch conduit which was bored below the sea floor in 2015 to protect the eelgrass and sensitive shoreline. On the San Juan side, the terrain made an undersea bore impossible; the cable will be laid in the same path as the old one, minimizing any disturbance of the eelgrass beds.

On board the barge, OPALCO’s System Engineer Joel Mietzner monitors the removal and installation of OPALCO’s cables – some nights sleeping on the deck to keep the project on track during the 24/7 work effort.

“OPALCO’s project team, led by Joel Mietzner, has done a tremendous job to bring to this point of installing the cable,” said General Manager Foster Hildreth. “The engineering task is huge, but it was the coordination of permitting and regulatory agencies over the past three years that was the Herculean task. We couldn’t have done it without the expertise of our staff and the help of local contractor JenJay.”

To learn more about the project, go to: https://www.opalco.com/power-system/submarine-cable-project/

OPALCO will hold Open Houses on each ferry-served island this week to answer questions about the submarine cable project and other OPALCO projects:

Upcoming meetings will be:

• Wednesday, September 27 in Friday Harbor at 6 p.m. at the Friday Harbor Grange
• Thursday, September 28 on Orcas Island at 6 p.m. at the Senior Center.