Wrangell strike costs SEAPA with delay

Delays to line maintenance prompted by a public employee strike in Wrangell this June will cost a regional power utility an extra $103,000.

Southeast Alaska Power Agency (SEAPA) chief executive Trey Acteson presented board members with a change order for the project, which would among other maintenance tasks replace marker balls along the transmission lines connecting Tyee Lake to the grid. Work had been set to start the latter half of June, during which time Wrangell would have had to run on its diesel backups. But an unrelated strike by two dozen of its city employees began on June 22, and r...