Craig Coles, Director of Gas Operations with Lower Valley Energy, stepped into the studio to discuss the completion of a natural gas pipeline from Montpelier to Afton that is now serving the residents of Afton.

(0:00) Weekday wake up on the SVI radio network heading back into another guest interview segment this (0:05) morning and joining me in studio today is Craig Coles. Craig is the director of gas operations (0:09) at Lower Valley Energy and Craig you’ve had the chance to see a really big long-term project (0:15) kind of come to completion and and start seeing it now be in service with the natural gas pipeline (0:20) that’s been installed and gas is flowing through it. So first off let’s let’s talk about that and (0:27) how the project started and what the overall goal was initially and why it became a thing.

(0:32) Yeah thanks for having me. We’re excited to actually be able to come and talk a little (0:35) bit about the Crow Creek Pipeline. It’s been a long time coming.

Kind of give you a little (0:40) bit of history. We started serving gas into the town of Afton in the like 1997 time frame (0:48) and we’ve been serving gas for about 20 years and there’d been a lot of things that had changed over (0:53) the years and one of one of those was the cost. The cost to liquefy the gas at the Exxon plant (1:01) like everything had gone up in price a lot and then also there used to be a couple different (1:07) places we could get LNG supply and so one of those plants had shut down and so we were down to just (1:14) one place that we could get supply and so as we all know around this area the roads can close or (1:20) even the plant could shut down and so if you don’t get a load coming in every day then our tanks get (1:27) pretty low quick and so reliability was a concern for us and so we we started looking at the options (1:34) to make sure we keep our rates low and to be able to have the reliability that we needed for natural (1:41) gas and so that brought us to looking at doing a pipeline into the Afton area.

Very good. So you (1:48) start this project when? When did it officially like I mean I know there’s obviously go through (1:54) the kind of the red tape of the whole thing and and and the planning and procedures but and so (1:59) when did it actually start working on this thing? Yeah this one’s been a long time in the in the (2:04) makings. We actually started about nine years ago and that we started looking at the options of where (2:12) to come from and that was everywhere from Soda Springs, Georgetown, Montpelier and a lot of other (2:19) options.

We looked at every every different direction that we could go to be able to get here (2:24) from. So once we got to that point we picked the option to come up go down Crow Creek to Montpelier (2:32) area and we started the EIS with the Forest Service and so that took us quite a bit of time (2:39) and then along the way we hit some roadblocks that that caused us to have to do some supplemental EIS (2:47) and also to continue working through you know the legal side of things as as well as (2:59) prices kept changing during that time frame and there was a lot of a lot of roadblocks and so (3:05) once we finally got through the EIS and the supplemental EIS it was in July of this summer (3:11) that we were finally given the right the green light to move forward with construction. So it (3:16) was a full nine years waiting to start construction.

Once construction happened though it it went quick (3:22) I mean you talked about starting in July and I remember we did a story when the when the construction (3:27) phase was was pretty well wrapped up and I mean you’re talking just a few months to bury a line (3:31) from Montpelier all the way into Afton. That’s correct so that’s what’s pretty exciting is (3:36) we did a couple things different it’s 47 miles and some of that country is it’s rugged. (3:42) We so we we tied on to the Williams Northwest Pipeline which is about a mile south of Montpelier (3:49) and then we went east up to the Geneva Summit and crossed right at Geneva Summit and then followed (3:57) the Crow Creek Road down to Fairview.

That some of that construction was incredibly steep or (4:08) or tight and so we were able to bring in what they call the spider plow and we were able to do some (4:15) days as much as two miles a day of putting pipe in. It’s a 12 inch HDPE pipe so it’s not easy to (4:22) work with but it we really were able to make a lot of ground fast so much that the pipe (4:30) manufacturers were having a hard time keeping up with this along with the the fusing because you (4:36) have to fuse a joint every 50 feet and so the pipe the pipe manufacturer actually called us (4:43) after the fact to say what did you guys do different because it was one of the first times (4:48) we have never been able to keep up with a contractor that that was going that fast and so (4:52) yeah construction went really fast went really well for us and we were able to finish the putting (4:59) installing the pipe in the kind of mid-November and then there’s a lot of testing and and things (5:04) that go after that. And when did gas officially start flowing through and serving? So we we (5:11) actually brought natural gas to the town of Afton on Friday about two weeks ago and we had a pretty (5:19) seamless transition from going from our liquefied natural gas plant to the pipeline gas.

Very cool. (5:26) Craig Cole’s in studio this morning he’s the director of gas operations at Lower Valley Energy (5:31) so so just to reiterate as of right now this is serving just the the current gas network that’s (5:37) in the community of Afton right? That’s correct it so when we put in the liquefied natural gas (5:45) distribution system that’s what’s feeding town and so that’s what we hooked directly this pipeline (5:51) into for right now. Perfect and of course the big question everybody wants to know is like (5:56) all right now we have the pipeline in do you expect the distribution to expand more in the future? (6:02) Yeah that’s a great question that’s what I get a lot of calls and everybody wants to know that (6:06) I think that everybody’s excited to see it come into the valley and I think it’s a great thing (6:10) for the valley and because of that we definitely want to move as you know through the valley.

(6:16) Like everything it’s a process it doesn’t just happen overnight and for a lot of years we didn’t (6:22) know if this pipeline was ever even going to get to Afton but now that it is here we will start (6:27) in certain areas you know the Fairview area that we just came through we hope to do that this summer (6:33) and then hopefully as the summers progress we’ll be able to start heading through the valley. (6:38) Okay so that is the plan then it sounds like and doesn’t sound like you’re really waiting (6:43) for anything either you’re going right ahead to it. Yeah we will we’ve already started some (6:46) of the planning for a lot of the you know the routes and we’ll start looking at the costs (6:52) associated with it and to how we can do it responsibly for our members but yet to be able (6:58) serve power and gas throughout the whole valley.

So Craig if you could break it down again the big (7:05) benefits to now have a pipeline coming into what is the upper valley of Star Valley why did you do (7:11) the project and what are the benefits? Yeah the benefits are definitely to keep our rates low (7:15) and also to have a reliable source it was definitely a struggle at times over the last (7:21) 20 years for those two things. All right anything else you’d like to mention about this line? Yeah (7:25) I’d just like to say you know there was a lot of people that helped me to make this happen (7:29) from the employees to the board of directors to the contractors that were part of this it was a (7:36) huge project and to be able to do it in such a short period of time once we started was pretty (7:40) amazing and the support behind it has been fantastic. That’s Craig Coles director of gas operations at (7:45) Lower Valley Energy and just to reiterate we do have our listeners in Southern Leakey County (7:49) this gas is coming from Williams and Opal right and it’s it’s their line up to Montpelier and (7:54) it comes over from there.

Yes that’s correct we are tied on to the northwest pipeline which (7:58) does come from the Opal and the Jonah field. Awesome all right Craig thanks again and man (8:05) congratulations on a huge project completed. Yeah thank you.

It’s all part of the weekday (8:08) wake up this morning on SVI radio.