PORT ANGELES – The City of Port Angeles is requesting bids from contractors to remove all of the mechanical parts of the Morse Creek hydro-electric power plant. The city is hoping to sell-off the parts.
The facility, which started up in 1987, was decommissioned in 2012 after a wear-and-tear mechanical failure that was eventually, after years of debate, deemed more expensive to fix and maintain than it was worth. At its peak, the plant generated less than one percent of the city’s power usage, not counting industrial needs.
Director of Public Works Thomas Hunter says, in making the decision to sell off the plant, they let the numbers do the talking.
“We were coming up on the replacement of some relatively large ticket items and, in looking at the cost associated with those replacements and, kind of, the value/benefit analysis, it was just determined that the capital that we would need to invest to upgrade and repair that facility from years of operation just didn’t pencil out for the ratepayers. We really just let the numbers tell us that it was time and that that facility had ran its course.”
The concrete portions of the facility, which is about 5 miles upstream from Highway 101, will stay in place for now. Hunter says the job will just be to get the some very heavy components deconstructed and moved off the scene.
“You know, we’re currently right now in the process of obtaining those quotes, basically to haul the transformer, generator, operating controls…and get those over to a secure location for us to either assess whether there is resale value or look at what the scrap value of some of that very old equipment is.”
Deadline for submitting bids is December 17.