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Community Partnerships
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Recycling Wood Poles
Transmission Services is recycling old wood transmission line poles. They're being re-manufactured into useful yard products and fences. Poles
have been donated to Oregon state parks for new split rail fences, benches and parking lot bumpers. In past years the old
poles were either left along right-of-ways to just 'disappear' or were given to adjacent landowners. With growing concerns
about safe disposal of chemically treated wood few landfills will take the poles because they are too large to break down quickly.
Transmission Services expects to replace about 1,500 to 2,000 poles a year. That's a huge jump from earlier years when we typically replaced only
about 500 poles. The secret to the recycling effort is that the poles are long, straight-grained, well-preserved Western red
cedar. The mill slices off the treated portions of the poles leaving beautiful cedar cants. The treated parts go to landfills where
chemicals can be contained. Such disposal could cost BPA $60 to $100 a pole. The agency will replace 30,000 wood
transmission poles in the next fifteen years. That's over one-third of all the wood poles in BPA's four state transmission
system. Most of these poles were installed between 1938 and 1945 meaning most are about 60 years old. They are being
replaced for safety and reliability reasons.
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Transmission Services
