Decade of the 60's
Highlighting sales and promotion efforts in 1967 was a 33 percent increase in total electric homes. Special emphasis was placed on conversion of present homes to total electric homes because a residential customer with electric heating used an average of 20,647 kWh in 1967 while a residential customer without electric heating had an average use of only 4,500 kWh. An additional 294 dusk-to-dawn PAL customers were added during 1967, bringing the number of luminaries in service to 55 per thousand customers.
Considerable effort was expended by the Company and neighboring utilities in early 1967 to determine the feasibility of building a large air-cooled generating plant in the early 1970's. The plant would be located adjacent to the Wyodak mine. Due to complications associated with the injection of large blocks of power into the existing area grid, studies took longer than expected.
During the summer BHP&L authorized Stearns Roger Corporation to design and construct a 20-megawatt unit to be built as an addition to the present Wyodak plant. The plant would contain an air-cooled condenser from the GEA Company of Bochum, West Germany. The German designed, air-cooled condenser was investigated in 1966 by engineers of the Company and Stearns Roger after five years of research by the Company on a pilot unit located at the Wyodak plant. The Company had moved the 3000 kW unit from the old Rapid City Plant to the Wyodak Plant and installed equipment to air-cool the plant and provide information and operating data on the amount of water that could be saved with this kind of condenser. The air-cooled condenser was the first of its kind in the western hemisphere and was a major breakthrough for the Company. It allowed locating generation where water was expensive or nonexistent. The installation aroused great interest throughout the industry.
Employees, in an election held in May 1967, declined for the fifth time in the last twelve years an offer to be represented by a union. The Company received 55 percent of the votes to 45 percent for the union. On two previous occasions the union withdrew their request for an election before the elections could be held.
The Company received two major votes of confidence within a six month period in 1967. On a hotly contested special referendum election in July, the citizens of Rapid City voted to award to the Company the power contract to serve the city's new waste water treatment plant located in Rapid Valley, in spite of a special low rate offered by West River Electric Coop. The citizens of Hot Springs by an overwhelming vote in an election held in July, granted the Company a 20-year franchise. The city of Hot Springs was the only community in which the Company had been operating without a franchise. Both the Hot Springs and Rapid City victories were accomplished with an all-out effort by the employees of the Company Jim Emery, manager of Hot Springs at the time, was recognized for executing a well-organized campaign.
Several new buildings in the Black Hills were either in the planning or construction stage in 1967. Included were a new hospital in Deadwood; a million dollar Forest Service Headquarters building at Custer; and many projects in Rapid City, including a 58 unit deluxe addition to the Holiday Inn motel, an addition to the Northwestern Bell Telephone Company office building, a $4.2 million three-building high school, an eight story home office building for Rushmore Mutual Life Insurance Company, a new Post Office and a Federal Office Building. It was hoped that the Rushmore Building, Post Office and Federal Building would provide a core for the renewal of the downtown area.
An effort to make the Black Hills area a year around vacation land was furthered with the installation of a new ski lift at Terry Peak and completion of a complex of condominiums in the same area.
Great interest was focused in 1967 on the recent discovery of oil in the Belle Creek Field area in southeastern Montana. The power requirements for the pumping stations served by the Company were increased, and the Company has been alerted to the possibility of additional loads in the area.
The construction of a new 69 kV line from Belle Fourche to Colony, Wyoming, was completed and energized on May 21, 1967. The line, completed at a cost of approximately $220,000, provided the additional capacity needed to serve the new and growing industrial loads in the Colony area.
William Redl, Rapid City lineman, became a member of the Turtle Club. The Turtle Club is a national organization composed of members whose lives have been saved by wearing a hard safety hat. The purpose of the organization is to remind workers of the importance of wearing head protection while working where there is a danger of falling objects. Black Hills Power and Light Company has seven Turtle Club members: Fred Seigfried, Joe Miglia, Bruce Willadson, Jim Muser, Joel Johnson, M. S. Miglia and William Redl. A grounding clamp weighing eight pounds fell 30 feet and struck Redl's hard hat. The hat was cracked but Redl was not injured.
A new look took shape at the old warehouse in July 1967. The Company purchased the parcel of land between the old warehouse yard and Oshkosh Street to the west. The west yard of the warehouse was filled and graveled and a chain link fence built for security of material storage. Lighting consisted of 22 mercury vapor 1000-watt floodlights.
Ronald Snyder resigned in 1968 as Treasurer of the Company and George T. Locke was elected Secretary-Treasurer. Mr. Locke has been Secretary of the Company since 1963 and has been with the Company since 1959. Robert Asheim was elected Senior Vice President at the same time. Mr. Asheim joined the Company in 1945 and was elected Vice President in 1957 and Administrative Vice President in 1962.
Early in the spring of 1968, the Company entered into an agreement with Samuel Gary, Denver oil producer, to serve the newly discovered Belle Creek oil field in southeastern Montana. This area was completely isolated from the Company system so living and working quarters had to be established and all facilities and equipment transported into the oil field. The project was a major undertaking because of the absence of usable roads. More than 20 miles of 69 kV transmission line and about 12 miles of distribution line was constructed and complete operating facilities established in the area. Service was first established at Belle Creek on July 30, 1968. About 33 miles of 69kV transmission line was scheduled for completion in December to replace a 47 kV transmission line presently serving the area.
Construction was started in July on the planned 22-megawatt addition to the Wyodak Power Plant.
A mutually beneficial agreement was negotiated with Tri-County Electric Association, permitting the Company to transmit electricity from the new unit over a Tri-County transmission line into the transmission grid system of the Company This agreement eliminated the necessity for the Company to build almost 53 miles of 69 kV transmission line. Both Companies benefited from the agreement.
The Company, in cooperation with developers, installed the first of a number of underground projects during 1968. Research and development efforts by the industry and electrical manufacturers had reduced the costs over the years for underground installations.
In its first year of operation Belle Creek became the largest producing oil field in all the Rocky Mountain States. Production from about 335 wells exceeded 60,000 barrels per day. Known reserves were set at half a billion barrels.
A special meeting of the stockholders was held on October 29, 1968. A resolution was adopted by shareholders to increase the Company ' s indebtedness from $18 million to not exceeding $30 million at any one time.
During the summer of 1968 the South Dakota State Secretary of Finance approached the Company with a proposal that the Company "Wheel" Bureau of Reclamation power to four state institutions: the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology; Black Hills State College in Spearfish; the State Veterans Home at Hot Springs; and Custer State Hospital at Sanator. All four institutions were served by Black Hills Power and Light Company from its distribution lines. The Company asked the state to reconsider because the state should pay its fair share of the cost of power, there were no real savings to the state in accepting Bureau power, public power was not a desirable goal nor acceptable to the people of this state, and local industries creating jobs in the state should be supported. It was also pointed out that an agreement with the power industry in the state had led to the passage of a law by the legislature in 1965 whereby all persons and firms receiving power would continue to take power from the firm then supplying said power and that the state was also bound by the law. Nevertheless, the Secretary of Finance requested bids from power suppliers for entering into a lease-purchase contract for substations and transmission lines to deliver Bureau power to the four institutions. The only bid was submitted by Rushmore Electric Power Cooperative, Inc., on behalf of some of its member cooperatives, and it was announced that the contract with Rushmore would be negotiated, drawn and signed within about six weeks. On October 30, 1968, the Company filed legal documents to enjoin the state from entering into a contract with the REA's. The courts ruled in favor of the Company.
In February of 1968 the new building at the Rapid City warehouse was completed. It housed the general office shop, distribution shop, lineman's headquarters, storage area and the warehouse office.
Black Hills Power and Light Company was the 1967 winner in the Reddy Kilowatt Annual Report Competition. The honor was presented at the Edison Electric Institute Annual Convention. The Company competed with the annual reports of many investor-owned utility companies from the U.S. and other countries.
In August of 1968 Ellsworth was receiving their power from the Bureau of Reclamation so all of the facilities of Black Hills Power and Light Company was removed. The line was retired and the station structure, transformers, and regulators were removed.
In 1968 the two old Provo Plant buildings were given to the Fall River County Fairboard and moved to the Fall River County Fairgrounds located in the northwest corner of Edgemont. The Provo Plant was an old diesel plant built in 1942 to serve the Black Hills Army Depot. It had nine diesel engines three of which were junked out in 1967.
The federal government established a two price gold system in 1968 that somewhat relieved Homestake Mining Company of its cost-price squeeze and provided optimism for the area. Homestake, which operates the largest gold mine in the western hemisphere, is the Company's largest electric customer.
Employees, for the sixth time in the last 13 years, rejected representation by the union. On two previous occasions the union withdrew its request for elections before the elections could be held. The employees also rejected the union representation for the seventh time in the last fourteen years on August 29, 1968. Two elections were held simultaneously, one for production, maintenance, and distribution employees and one for office clerical employees.
The major construction item for 1969 was the completion of the Number 5 unit to the Wyodak Power Plant. This was the unit that featured the innovation of condensing the steam from the turbine by air-cooling rather than by water as in a conventional plant. The plant became the first plant in the western hemisphere with an air-cooled condenser on a steam turbine for power plant production.
A new 20-year electric service agreement was negotiated and a new 69 kV transmission line was constructed from Wyodak Power Plant to the city of Gillette and a new, larger transformer was installed.
The Company also completed the signing of a new 20-year electric service agreement with the city of Upton, Wyoming.
General changes in the management of the Company occurred in 1970. Harry Z. Babbitt, Vice President of Engineering for the past eight years, retired on January 1, 1970 after working for the Company nearly twenty-two years. He graduated from high school at Boulder, Colorado, and received his electrical engineering degree from Kansas State University. He was employed by Kansas Electric Power Company before going to work for Northwestern Public Service Company in Huron, Yankton, and Aberdeen for seventeen years. Harry was the Company construction coordinator during the construction of the Osage Power Plant and was Manager of Production for eight years before being elected by the Board of Directors as Vice President. Babbitt was succeeded by Wilford I. Westre. Westre was a graduate of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and had been employed by the Company since 1959.
The Company, on April 28, 1969, signed a letter of intent with Rushmore Mutual Life Insurance Company to lease three floors of Rushmore's new office building then under construction. The eight story high-rise building would be the first of its kind in South Dakota to utilize the heat-by-light concept, a method of total electric environmental control.
There was much publicity about the Consumer's Protection Bill passed by the 1969 session of the legislature. The bill provided for control of, primarily, territory and rates of all electric and gas suppliers in the state by the South Dakota Gas and Electric Consumer Council. It would be a newly created council made up of three persons whose sole responsibility would be to deal with electric and gas suppliers. The Company supported the action of the legislature, however, the REA's were strongly opposed to it and petitions were circulated requesting a referendum. For years the Company had supported state legislation that would provide for a regulatory commission with all suppliers of electric service subject to the same rules and administered by capable people in a fair, equitable, and nonpolitical manner.
In August 1969, Al Wessel, Rapid City sales supervisor, had 52 school major appliances to change out for that year under the Hotpoint Program. It was a program where the schools bought the original appliances for their Home Economics rooms, and the Company would replace the appliances with the new model each year, free of charge. The program was offered to each school in the service area where Home Economics was taught.
Construction, operating, and maintenance employees of Black Hills Power and Light Company and its subsidiary, Wyodak Resources Development Corp., held a three-way election on October 3, 1969, between IBEW, Communications Workers of America (AFL-CIO), and the Company. The vote was against union representation 44.1 percent; for IBEW, 34.1 percent; and AFL-CIO, 21.8 percent. Since neither the Company or a union received a majority of the votes cast, a run off election was held on October 22, 1969, and the employees rejected IBEW once again.
The Company was awarded the fleet safety plaque by the North Central Electric Association for its 1969 vehicle safety record of only eight minor accidents in 1,313,151 miles. In addition, the employees worked some 850,000 man-hours without a disabling injury.