Using an air wrench, workers with PAR tighten the bolts on one of the four arms on the top section of the monopole.

KOSCIUSKO COUNTY — Activity on NIPSCO’s Reynolds-Topeka Line will soon become more frequent in the area as crews put together and erect the monopoles (single pole). That line runs north and west through the county into Elkhart County.

This worker with PAR, general contractor, is one of the framing crew members responsible for putting the arms on the monopoles — a single pole, that will be erected along the Reynolds-Topeka Line that runs through the Lakeland area. The crew was working on the south side of CR 1000N Monday afternoon.

Many of the locations in this area are having various pole and arm sections delivered to the sites. Currently framing crews are working southwest of Milford to attach arm sections to the main pole.

Clint Jolliff, NIPSCO project manager and Tom Galos, senior manager with Sargent & Lundy LLC – power delivery services – construction, testing and commissioning services, stated there are 15-20 foundations yet to be installed for the 493 towers. The remaining foundations are expected to be completed in the next few weeks.

Various construction crews with PAR, general contractors for the project, are completing five towers daily, or 15-20 towers per week. The estimation is all monopole structures will be erected by October/November. Work on the substations will continue through the second quarter of 2018.

According to Jolliff and Galos the framing crew will be in the Milford area in the next week to week and a half. The framing crews will be followed by the erection crew to install the pole sections. The installation of the lines will be initially handled by a helicopter feeding a sock line to the towers. The line will then be hooked to a hard line and pulled with machines and tensioners.

Those who have driven past the sites may have noticed there is a single section of the pole already installed, where in other places there are round cement platforms with bolts. The poles are being erected in two different fashions.

Crews responsible for erecting the monopoles will soon be in the Milford-Syracuse area. This photo, taken south of the Lakeland area, shows the crew installing the final section. (Photo provided)

The areas where the lower section of the poles are installed, are direct embedded foundation poles – going directly into the ground approximately 28 to 36 feet. Concrete has been poured around these poles. The other method is with a concrete foundation. These concrete foundations could be approximately 12 to 18 feet in diameter and go down as deep as 56 feet. The monopole will be bolted directly on top of these foundations.

Throughout the construction period an environmental team — internal as well as contracted employees — have traveled the right of way ensuring the construction is abiding the protections set out in drawings and specifications, as well as the storm water pollution protection plan.

The project began in the winter of 2012. It was in August 2013 the final route selection was made and right of way entry permission was solicited. Permitting for the project and right of way acquisition took place in the latter part of 2013 and into 2014. Right of way survey work, erosion control barriers in construction sites and access roads were started in the area in early 2016. Actual construction began in June 2016.

The new line will have 100 miles of 345kV electric transmission line and in portions follow the existing high voltage line, also owned by NIPSCO. This line will travel from Reynolds, in White County and go northeast to the transmission substation in Burr Oak, in Marshall County, then to the Hiple substation, near Topeka.

Those monopoles on the Reynolds-Topeka Line which will handle the heavy loads of the line — near roadways, bridges, overpasses — will be placed on concrete foundations that range from 17 feet in diameter with up to 600 yards of concrete and can be as deep as 56 feet. Other poles will be placed directly in the ground up to 36 feet deep.