Wood Pole Maintenance Program

We’re extending the life of our power poles. This is part of our annual maintenance program. We’re:

• inspecting poles
• treating poles
• replacing poles

Why we’re doing it

This work helps extend the life of the poles from 30 to 35 years to more than 60 years! It’ll also saves money. How? Well it costs less than $50 per pole to maintain a power pole. But replacing a pole costs $2,500 on average.

This work will also:

• increase safety for our employees and customers
• continue to provide reliable power across the province

Our progress so far

We are continuing to invest in our infrastructure. In 2020, our plan is to have our crews:

• inspect 119,000 wood power poles
  
• replace 2,500 wood power poles

We’ll be on the lookout for signs of:

• decay
• carpenter ant infestation
• damage

This way we can take care of any issues right away. Which will delay the poles replacement in the future.

Minimizing the impact to you

We’ll stay within the right-of-way as much as we can. But sometimes our crews may need access to your property to perform the work. If this happens, we’ll make sure we’re respectful of our surroundings.

Respecting the local environment

Extending the life of our power poles helps to make sure they don’t end up in the landfill. That and we’re saving a tree while lowering the impact to the environment.

Benefits to local communities

This work allows us to lower the life cycle costs of power poles. The estimated cost of the project in 2020 is $20 million. $6.2 million on replacements and $17.5 million on inspections and maintenance.

Keeping you informed

You may see us doing inspections and maintenance in:

• Turtleford and area (May to July)
• Rosthern and area (May to June)
• Shellbrook and area (June to August)
• Hudson Bay and area (August to October)
• Creighton and area (August to October)
• La Ronge and area (August to October)
• Swift Current and area (June to July)
• Weyburn and area (July)
• Wynyard and area (August to September)
• Yorkton and area (August to October)
• Regina and area (September to October)

Construction crews will also be carrying out replacements throughout the year in:

• Kipling
• Lumsden
• Prince Albert and area
• Melfort
• Nipawin and area

To meet your needs, our crews may work outside of these dates. We do our best to lower the impact for customers and agriculture operations.