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Small Montana firm lands Puerto Ricos biggest contract to get the power back on
Source: The Washington Post
For the sprawling effort to restore Puerto Ricos crippled electrical grid, the territorys state-owned utility has turned to a two-year-old company from Montana that had just two full-time employees on the day Hurricane Maria made landfall.
The company, Whitefish Energy, said last week that it had signed a $300 million contract with the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority to repair and reconstruct large portions of the islands electrical infrastructure. The contract is the biggest yet issued in the troubled relief effort.
Whitefish said Monday that it has 280 workers in the territory, using linemen from across the country, most of them as subcontractors, and that the number grows on average from 10 to 20 people a day. It said it was close to completing infrastructure work that will energize some of the key industrial facilities that are critical to restarting the local economy.
The power authority, also known as PREPA, opted to hire Whitefish rather than activate the mutual aid arrangements it has with other utilities. For many years, such agreements have helped U.S. utilities including those in Florida and Texas recently to recover quickly after natural disasters.
...
Whitefish Energy is based in Whitefish, Mont., the home town of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Its chief executive, Andy Techmanski, and Zinke acknowledge knowing one another but only, Zinkes office said in an email, because Whitefish is a small town where everybody knows everybody. One of Zinkes sons joined a friend who worked a summer job at one of Techmanskis construction sites, the email said. Whitefish said he worked as a flagger.
...
The scale of the disaster in Puerto Rico is far larger than anything Whitefish has handled. The company has won two contracts from the Energy Department, including $172,000 to replace a metal pole structure and splice in three miles of new conductor and overhead ground wire in Arizona.
Shortly before Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, Whitefish landed its largest federal contract, a $1.3 million deal to replace and upgrade parts of a 4.8-mile transmission line in Arizona. The company which was listed in procurement documents as having annual revenue of $1 million was given 11 months to complete the work, records show.
...
Under the contract, the hourly rate was set at $330 for a site supervisor, and at $227.88 for a journeyman lineman. The cost for subcontractors, which make up the bulk of Whitefishs workforce, is $462 per hour for a supervisor and $319.04 for a lineman. Whitefish also charges nightly accommodation fees of $332 per worker and almost $80 per day for food.
Only eight contracts larger than $20 million have been approved for Puerto Rico by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, with half of those for shipments of food and bottled water. Whitefishs contract surpasses the $240 million contract the Army Corps awarded to engineering giant Fluor to augment ongoing efforts to repair the power grid.
The company, Whitefish Energy, said last week that it had signed a $300 million contract with the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority to repair and reconstruct large portions of the islands electrical infrastructure. The contract is the biggest yet issued in the troubled relief effort.
Whitefish said Monday that it has 280 workers in the territory, using linemen from across the country, most of them as subcontractors, and that the number grows on average from 10 to 20 people a day. It said it was close to completing infrastructure work that will energize some of the key industrial facilities that are critical to restarting the local economy.
The power authority, also known as PREPA, opted to hire Whitefish rather than activate the mutual aid arrangements it has with other utilities. For many years, such agreements have helped U.S. utilities including those in Florida and Texas recently to recover quickly after natural disasters.
...
Whitefish Energy is based in Whitefish, Mont., the home town of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Its chief executive, Andy Techmanski, and Zinke acknowledge knowing one another but only, Zinkes office said in an email, because Whitefish is a small town where everybody knows everybody. One of Zinkes sons joined a friend who worked a summer job at one of Techmanskis construction sites, the email said. Whitefish said he worked as a flagger.
...
The scale of the disaster in Puerto Rico is far larger than anything Whitefish has handled. The company has won two contracts from the Energy Department, including $172,000 to replace a metal pole structure and splice in three miles of new conductor and overhead ground wire in Arizona.
Shortly before Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, Whitefish landed its largest federal contract, a $1.3 million deal to replace and upgrade parts of a 4.8-mile transmission line in Arizona. The company which was listed in procurement documents as having annual revenue of $1 million was given 11 months to complete the work, records show.
...
Under the contract, the hourly rate was set at $330 for a site supervisor, and at $227.88 for a journeyman lineman. The cost for subcontractors, which make up the bulk of Whitefishs workforce, is $462 per hour for a supervisor and $319.04 for a lineman. Whitefish also charges nightly accommodation fees of $332 per worker and almost $80 per day for food.
Only eight contracts larger than $20 million have been approved for Puerto Rico by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, with half of those for shipments of food and bottled water. Whitefishs contract surpasses the $240 million contract the Army Corps awarded to engineering giant Fluor to augment ongoing efforts to repair the power grid.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/small-montana-firm-lands-puerto-ricos-biggest-contract-to-get-the-power-back-on/2017/10/23/31cccc3e-b4d6-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html
A lot to unpack here. And not the least bit fishy.
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Small Montana firm lands Puerto Ricos biggest contract to get the power back on (Original Post)
demmiblue
Oct 2017
OP
Not Ruth
(3,613 posts)1. Is Puerto Rico paying more due to credit issues?
That seems like a high hourly rate
Phoenix61
(17,006 posts)2. Hmmm... didn't utilize help from
mutual aid partners and the company that got the contract is from Zinke's hometown. Nope, nothing fishy there.
alarimer
(16,245 posts)3. This smells.
I think Ryan Zinke may just be the most corrupt of all the corrupt Trumpers. He wants to giveaway public lands and I'm sure he plans to profit somehow.
Not Ruth
(3,613 posts)4. Now being reported that this was the only company bidding no money down
So it was a credit issue