84 



10 



On contractor equipment purchases paid for by BPA, BPA generally retains 

 the title on the equipment. If the useful life of the equipment is over when the 

 contract expires, BPA may abandon the property in place or transfer the title. 

 If the useful life is not over by the time the contract expires, the equipment 

 either comes back for utilization or disposal or, in a few cases, BPA allows the 

 contractor to retain the equipment if they could use it on another contract for 

 BPA or for some other Federal agency. 



Question 5: It is my understanding that at the most recent "Programs In Perspective" BPA 



engineers agreed that in certain cases local utilities can design and construct 

 power lines below 500 kv more cost-effectively than BPA. Is this an accurate 

 statement? If so, how much money could be saved from FY 1994 to FY 1998 

 if BPA turned this responsibility over to the local utilities? Are there other 

 areas relating to transmission that BPA could transfer work to local utilities to 

 achieve more cost-effective resuks? 



Answer: The statement is not accurate. In the last Programs in Perspective BPA stated 



that in some cases local utilities can build 1 1 S kv transmission lines less 

 expensively. The comment did not include facilities above 11 S kv and did not 

 extend to the construction of 115 kv substation facilities or the operation and 

 maintenance of facilities. The primary reason for BPA costs being higher than 

 some customer costs is related to the Federal requirement for complying with 

 environmental planning studies and securing of transmission line right-of-way. 

 The added right-of-way costs are attributable to width requirements to comply 

 with reliability criteria. We can build short 1 15 kv lines and rebuild 1 15 kv 

 lines to 230 kv more cost effectively than other utilities by using our area 

 Transmission Line Maintenance crews. However, this practice detracts from 

 our maintenance program. 



