Birds Landing Area, Rio Vista, CA – Foreman Pete Tibbertsma – a forty-seven-year IBEW 1245 member – had seen it all.
47-year IBEW 1245 member Foreman Pete Tibbertsma heading up crew building two new ET Transmission Towers & Demolishing a third in Rio Vista
That is until he was called out on a job by Michels Pacific Energy to demolish one of the tallest transmission towers in the United States and replace it with two brand new towers in the California Delta in Rio Vista.
“We’ve pulled a lot of towers, but this is our first demolition,” said Tibbertsma.
A seasoned Outside Line journeyman lineman, Tibbertsma and his crew were charged with replacing the 520-foot transmission tower in Rio Vista with two new towers – 565 feet and 545 feet respectively. The enormous steel towers stand three quarters of a mile apart and are some of the tallest ET towers in the United States.
“The replacement became necessary when the bottom conductor got hit by a ship out in the middle of the Delta, so they needed to raise them up,” said Tibbertsma. The work began in mid-July, 2024, and is expected to be completed in the next month or two. “All we have to do is pull new wire in, get it dead ended, and made up,” he said.
Tibbertsma described his crew as the “shake down crew, saying, “We laid out all the steel for [the new towers]. There’s a little under a million pounds of steel on the new tower and 336,000 bolts per tower.”
According to Tibbertsma, the greatest challenges facing the crew were the soft ground and the wind. “Our 300-ton crane was 600 feet high; the water level was down 3 ½ feet. We had to mat it, put steel on top of mats, and deal with it sinking by moving back and forth,” he said. “And the wind messed with us the whole job. Over 15-mile an hour winds. We use man baskets. With 15-mile hour winds, we’d have to stop.”
But the crews are well trained and prepared.
Equipment Operator Bob Fields – with thirty-eight years’ experience, twenty-eight of which are with the Union – described his hands on training. “There’s lots of training…cranes are kind of my specialty, but I run everything…and now they have crane schools, and everybody’s got to have a crane license,” he said.
Tibbertsma stressed the importance of the knowledge passed down from the generations of linemen who came before him. “I’ve been doing this for forty-seven years, and I learned from old Linemen. I’m still talking to old Lineman. A friend of mine, Jake Snake, Salt Lake, he’s eighty years old, and he taught me a lot about line work. I just learned from the old guys, and hopefully I’ve taught a lot of the younger guys how to do it,” offered Tibbertsma.
As for safety protocols, “When I started in this business, there were no safety meetings. And then there were safety meetings every month, and then every week, and then every day, and then every tower,” said Fields.
Journeyman Lineman Scott Huddleson declared, “Our members building these two record setting towers gives us bragging rights over the rest of the country.”
IBEW 1245 Senior Assistant Business Manager Ralph Armstrong, who oversees the Outside Line Department and is a seasoned journeyman lineman himself, added, “I’ve driven by the old towers hundreds of times, and they aren’t easy to miss due to their size. This work is not easy, and good rigging is a priority. The skills these members must possess to perform this work safely is second to none and goes to show the kind of training they had to go through.”
As for the Union, Fields was matter of fact. “It’s made me a lot of money and given me good benefits, and I’ve worked on both sides,” he said. “I wish more people would start on the other side (nonunion); then they’d know [the value of the union].”
– Eileen Purcell, IBEW 1245 Sr. Advisor Photos by John Storey (unless otherwise indicated)
The view from inside the new tower Photo by crew
Equipment Operator Bob Fields
47-year IBEW 1245 member Foreman Pete Tibbertsma heading up crew building two new ET Transmission Towers & Demolishing a third in Rio Vista