A series of power outages during the past few weeks around the Hermosa area had crews with La Plata Electric Association out Wednesday trying to figure out the problem.
Justin Talbot, operations managers for LPEA, said a few outages were reported last week north of Durango that lasted about six hours. But he said they were at such a low-grade, crews weren’t able to pinpoint what caused the loss in power with testing equipment.
However, another outage around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday that affected about 245 members for about four hours allowed crews to track the fault to an electric line near Dalton Ranch.
LPEA crews, who also had to respond to a gas leak in Durango, worked until about 2 a.m. Wednesday, Talbot said.
LPEA workers returned later Wednesday to investigate what exactly is causing the outages.
“That’s the goal for today,” Talbot said.
It appears an aging or bad underground cable is causing the outages. Once pinpointed, crews intend to make temporary repairs to the line, then formulate a long-term solution.
Talbot said all of LPEA’s eight linemen were on scene.
“Seeing outages this frequently in one area definitely raises a red flag with us,” he said.
jromeo@durangoherald.com
