Construction starts on port’s fiber line

Work on the Port of Whitman County’s $12 million 157-mile project to string high speed fiber optic cable through Whitman County was set to begin Wednesday morning.

Crews with contractor Henkels and McCoy of Coeur d’Alene were to begin laying a conduit for the cable to run through a portion of rural Spokane County.

Joe Poire, port executive director, said the approximately 3,000-feet of work will be done in advance of the rest of the project so it can be done in conjunction with a chip-seal of Smythe Road in south Spokane County.

The project was set to begin Tuesday, but was delayed for a cultural review of the work site.

Full construction of the fiber line from Spokane to Clarkston is expected to begin next month.

Fiber optic cable will be forced through all the conduit by an air pressure system.

Henkels and McCoy will be lead contractor after landing the job with a quote of $7,365,925.85. When finished, the project will extend a 96-strand fiber optic line through several towns throughout Spokane and Whitman counties.

A federal stimulus grant of $9.8 million was awarded the port in March of 2010 to complete the project. Overall cost of the project is expected to be just under $12 million.

Debbie Snell, port properties manager, said she submitted last week an order with Power and Telephone of Tennessee to secure the cable. Snell said the port paid $919,000 for 170 miles of cable, a price of $5,406 per mile.

Poire said the price of just more than $1 per foot was relatively low. The port paid more than $2 per foot for 72-strand fiber for a smaller run it is currently installing in Pullman.

The Whitman County section is part of a Northwest Open Access Network project to expand broadband to rural Washington state. NOANet, based in Tacoma, received $135 million in federal stimulus funding last year.

Funded through the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the cable will run along state highways to bring high speed service to Rosalia, Oakesdale, Tekoa, Garfield, Palouse, Pullman, Colfax, Colton and Uniontown before hitting Clarkston.

The overall NOANet project will place fiber optic cable from Spokane to Walla Walla through Lewiston. Stimulus timelines require the project be completed in the next two years.

Initially, the fiber will be used to connect medical clinics and libraries to high-speed internet, increasing their ability to use and share online information.