Dive Summary:

• The Pine River Crossing, a project designed to stabilize power supply to the Navajo Dam and Middle Mesa region, is about to be complete nearly 22 years after the project was first proposed.
• The final leg of the construction was raising cables over Navajo Lake itself, which took seven months and required Farmington Electric Utility System's crews to scale sheer rock faces on each side of the lake.
• The Pine River Crossing project has inspired five other projects along the way that will also help stabilize the region's power including the Dwight Arthur Switching Station, the Pine River Substation, and the San Juan River crossing.

From the article:

In December 1990, Gary Rollstin, then the utility's chief electrical engineer and now it's project construction manager, was working on the project.

"From my perspective, having started it 22 years ago, you just have a sigh of relief," Rollstin said. "I always hope that when people go out there, they take a look and see what we've built." he said.

In the 22 years since beginning the project, the utility encountered numerous challenges in getting permission from the federal government for the crossing. The region contains a number of archeological sites and a fragile ecosystem, Rollstin said. ...