Wood Pole Inspection, Treatment, Repair, and UAV Inspection Services

Pasadena Water and Power is a municipally owned and operated utility that provides electric and water service to the city of Pasadena. PWP owns, operates, and maintains a citywide electric distribution system that serves residential, commercial, institutional, and municipal customers throughout an approximately 23-square-mile service area. PWP's Power Delivery Division is responsible for the operation, maintenance, engineering, construction, and reliability of the electric distribution system. This work is performed through multiple functional groups, including Engineering, Transmission and Distribution, Meter, Substation Maintenance, Power Dispatch, and related support sections. These groups collectively support system reliability, public safety, emergency response, capital improvement projects, routine maintenance, and regulatory compliance. PWP's overhead distribution system includes approximately 11,000 wood poles, including both City-owned and jointly owned poles. The pole population includes poles located in streets, alleys, easements, rear property areas, and other locations that may present varying levels of access difficulty. Many poles support multiple facilities and attachments, including electric distribution conductors, transformers, streetlight equipment, communication attachments, grounding systems, guying, and related appurtenances. Wood pole inspection, treatment, repair, and documentation are essential to maintaining the integrity of PWP's overhead distribution system. Properly performed inspections help identify decay, insect damage, mechanical damage, pole-top defects, pole-line hardware issues, groundline deterioration, unsafe conditions, and potential General Order 95 infractions. Preservative treatment and approved reinforcement methods may extend the useful life of serviceable poles, while timely reporting allows PWP to plan corrective maintenance, replacement, or other follow-up work. The previous contract for these services was established through an Invitation for Bids process. For this procurement, PWP intends to use a Request for Proposals process to allow the City to evaluate proposer qualifications, inspection methodology, technical approach, staffing, data management capabilities, safety practices, quality control procedures, experience with utility wood pole programs, and ability to incorporate modern inspection tools, including drone/UAV services. This approach is intended to provide PWP with greater flexibility to select the firm that offers the best overall combination of technical competence, regulatory understanding, field capability, data quality, and value.