In this story Huell visits the historic mining town of Randsburg near Ridgecrest in San Bernardino County, 190 miles northeast of Los Angeles. High atop wooden power poles, and while standing in a fiberglass bucket at the end of a 60-foot boom, Huell interviews electrical workers Bill Brzezinski, Carl Smith and Eddie Brock who all work in the remote desert region. (January 1989)
Huell visits Edison’s Large Apparatus Repair Shop (LARS) in Westminster and interviews shop manager Steve Mitchell. LARS was specifically designed to facilitate the repair of bulky substation transformers, generator turbines and large electrical equipment weighing up to 250 tons. LARS not only provided efficient large and heavy equipment maintenance it also had high voltage test capabilities to insure electrical integrity of high voltage equipment. Unfortunately, LARS is no longer in operation.
Huell visits Edison’s historic Kaweah Hydroelectric Facility on the western slope of the Sierras above Visalia. He interviews Jim Kepner, an Edison carpenter, whose maintenance duties include regularly walking the six-mile long wooden flume that delivers snow-melt waters from the mountains to the electrical generators at the Kaweah facility. Edison’s history dates back more than 130 years and traces it’s beginning to producing electricity with waterpower. Like the Kaweah facility many of the utility’s century-old hydroelectric generating plants are still operating. Huell learns that the continuing success of these facilities is because they hold strong to turn-of-the-century technology and time-tested practices –such as manual inspections. This Flume Walking episode featured a job largely forgotten in a modern company but still provides an essential service in “keeping the lights on” for more than three million customers.
Huell visits one of Edison’s oldest, and longest operating, generation facility: Santa Ana River #1. This powerhouse was built in 1898 by Edison predecessor Southern California Power Company and is located in the foothills above San Bernardino. The generating facility was the proving ground for first long distance transmission of electricity. Most of the original turn-of-the-century electrical equipment is preserved at the Santa Ana River Powerhouse. Huell interviews Supervisor of Operations and Maintenance Jim Hair. Jim walks back in time with Huell to explore the facility’s intriguing history and significance in developing technology to electrify Southern California.
Huell visits Edison’s Mohave Generating Station near Laughlin, NV to interview utility maintenance worker James Thompson. Thompson’s job involves working in summer time temperatures exceeding 200 degrees Fahrenheit to maintain the plant’s coal-fired boilers. This episode best reflects the pride and dedication of Edison employees towards their job and company. Mohave Generating Station was unique in that it burned coal slurry pumped through pipes from coal mines 275 miles north in Kayenta, AZ. The plant has since been decommissioned and demolished.
Huell visits Edison’s historic Big Creek Hydroelectric Facilities high in the Sierras east of Fresno. He interviews staff archaeologist Tom Taylor who explains the importance of his job of researching and documenting to help preserve artifacts from the Western Mono people who originally inhabited the region. Huell also interviews Native American artist Margaret Batey. Margaret preserves her Western Mono Culture handed down through the generations by collecting plants and materials from the area for her art projects and intricate baskets.
Huell visits Edison’s Fuel Oil Storage Facility in Dominguez Hills and interviews Chuck Perry who’s responsible for the storage of 18 million barrels of oil that provide backup fuel for Edison’s electric generating plants that used natural gas as their primary fuel. Since then all of Edison’s generating plants, as well as the Dominguez Hills facility, have been decommissioned or sold.
Huell visits Edison’s Aircraft Operations Center in Chino and interviews Senior Captain Mark Kovaletz. Mark takes Huell for a helicopter ride and learns how the company uses its versatile helicopters not only for site inspections and survey work but more importantly, to perform aerial powerline construction in critical and at times, inaccessible locations.