Whether you are building a new house and power lines, having voltage problems with your current location, or need to put in a new crop circle, Klickitat PUD’s Engineering department should be one of your first calls.

From the time you contact KPUD, to the time you have poles in the ground and power to your project, the people you will be in contact with include our Engineer, our Engineer Assistants, our Staking Engineers, and our Mapping and Support personnel.

At the top of the heap is Engineering Manager Jim Smith, who also serves in the Professional Engineer role for KPUD. In Goldendale, Mike Blumenstein is the Engineering Assistant, and Miquette Ihrig is the Staking Engineer. In Goldendale, Dave Enwards is the Engineering Assistant, and Jeff Thayer is the Staking Engineer. Bob Zacharski is the new System Engineer, and Engineers Russ Patton and Tim Furlong currently work special projects for Water/Wastewater system improvements. Holly Dohrman, the GIS mapping specialist, and Luann Mata, the Engineering Support Assistant, are located in the Goldendale office.

“As the manager, my job is to put the systems in place to support the engineering staff, and then they can carry on without me,” said Jim. “That way, I can work on the large project designs, long range plans, and system improvements, and the customers’ needs are being met by the staff with the most knowledge on getting them connected.”

The department is currently busy with various wind projects throughout the county including transmission interconnections.

As the engineer, Jim does design planning, with the intent that the system has a 60-year life, so new services and lines need to be designed for flexible growth, from load and customer numbers. Jim also designs and/or manages design consultants on projects such as new substations and new transmission lines.

When a new residential or commercial service is needed, Mike, Miquette, Dave or Jeff will stake the line, write the sheets detailing the project, get permits and easements where needed, and make sure that the bills are paid, and obligations met. Then they will coordinate with the Operations Department to ensure materials are ready, and schedule the project to be completed by a line crew.

After the engineers stake the project, and the work order is written, the crew does the work. The work order then goes back to Engineering to certify that it was completed correctly, and then Holly posts the project to the mapping system, so that it is added to the inventory and mapping programs.

“Any changes to the system, including power lines, a new house, a repair on a meter, are shown on our maps,” said Holly. “That way, inventory and equipment is reflected on the maps, and the crews know what is out there, and what parts will be needed for replacement.”

The mapping system is an improvement that everyone agrees is beneficial. Rather than the old method of writing work orders and drawing maps by hand, information is now entered into the computer. The system generates the drawings, staking sheets and material lists. When poles, crossarms, bolts, wire or other materials are used for a new service, they are added to the mapping system by pole number, with assembly numbers and customer information so everyone knows exactly what and who is where. Given that the PUD has more than 24,000 poles and 10,000 customers, the system is quite extensive.

A current upgrade that is being implemented is an outage tracking system. During an outage, calls can be logged, and will show up on the computerized maps as flashing trouble lights. The calls make a pattern on the map, and Operations staff can use their laptops to see where the potential source of trouble is. This allows them to quickly pinpoint the problem. They can then look up the assembly numbers for the materials at that location, so they know what replacement materials to take with them to the site, drastically reducing outage times.

The large size and diversity of the county adds to the challenges. Differences between the east and west end of the county, including terrain, ground cover, lack of roads and customer density account for differing roles for the engineering staff. Also, the west end is part of the Gorge Scenic Area, and the east end is not. Mike and Miquette might deal with smaller, more complicated projects, but Dave and Jeff have to drive further distances between customers and have more easement issues.

“You can get snowed on at the top of Glenwood Grade, and then rained on in Alderdale and Mabton, all in the same day,” says Jeff.

As the engineering assistants, Bill and Dave handle the larger projects, and more of the commercial applications, while Mike and Jeff primarily do residential projects. The Bingen Revitalization project, Port of Klickitat expansion, and upgrades at Maryhill Museum have all been recent large projects.

Each of the engineers brings a different specialty to their position. Mike, who started in 1985, is a professional land surveyor, and Miquette, who started in 1999 and recently transferred from KPUD's Energy Services Department to Engineering. Dave came on board in 2000, and is a journeyman electrician, and Jeff, who joined the team in 2002, has a technical background of math, computers and science.

Holly also joined KPUD in 2002, and has an Engineering degree. Luann provides support for all of the engineers, schedules customers, enters data and handles filing and incoming billing for the department.