The job entailed removing six conductors of 3/0 copper and replacing them with three conductors of 477 MCM aluminum wire called ACSS(?). It is similar to ACSR (Aluminum conductor steel reinforced) but softer and will carry more amperage for a given size than ACSR. After the old conductors were removed, the new conductors were pulled in and tensioned (sagged). When that was complete the insulators on each tower were plumed and armor rod, shoes(suspension clamps) installed. Then the three unused strings were lowered to the ground with a hand line. Shortly after, a helicopter with a long line flew over the pile of insulators, a lineman attached them to the line and the helicopter moved to the next tower. After two towers, he flew to the landing zone, a field at the eastern edge of the project east of Hansen Rd and I-205, and descended with the load. Another person was there to disconnect it and he headed out for more. It didn't take long to move a lot of material this way.

All the insulators were headed for the dump. When I first noticed activity on the line thirty six strings had been removed. A few tidbits about this project:

• The length of line that was replaced was seven miles.
• The tower spacing is 960 +- ft, thirty eight towers worked on
• There were six strings of insulators with nine green, one aqua unit per string per tower. The aqua one was added to facilitate changing suspension clamps(shoes) due to its shallow skirts. You can see a detail of the string with the aqua one at the bottom [id:120002671; here]
• The original line was built in 1917, re-conductored with 3/0 copper in 1942.
• The Sediver units were installed in 1974.
• A total of 2280 insulators were replaced, I was able to recover 490 of them. The rest were thrown into 40 yd dumpsters. Over all, 21 percent were saved.