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By Steve Mocarsky smocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer
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HAZLETON – PPL Electric Utilities on Thursday announced the awarding of a $70 million contract to manufacture steel support poles for a major power transmission line project to a company with two plants in Greater Hazleton.

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Kevin O’Donnell, president of CAN DO, was one of several officials on Thursday to praise PPL Electric Utilities for awarding a manufacturing contract to Valmont Industries that will create 50 new jobs and bring millions of dollars into the regional economy.

PETE G. WILCOX/THE TIMES LEADER

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The award will lead to the creation of more than 50 new jobs at Valmont Industries Inc., which has manufacturing facilities in the Heights section of Hazleton and Valmont Industrial Park in West Hazleton.

PPL President David G. DeCampli said the choice of a local employer over competitors elsewhere in the United States will bring economic benefits to the region and Pennsylvania.

In addition to spurring the creation of manufacturing jobs, the project will have “significant positive ripple effects for the regional economy,” creating 165 to 330 construction jobs and having an economic impact of $100 million over a three-year period in the region, DeCampli said.

Valmont Industries will design and manufacture steel poles for the 101-mile Pennsylvania segment of the Susquehanna-Roseland line, which officials say is needed to prevent overloads on existing lines and is designed to avoid a regional blackout like the one that affected millions of people in 2003.

The power line will run from Berwick across the northeastern part of the state into the Lake Wallenpaupack area, south to the Bushkill area and ultimately cross the Delaware River into the Roseland, N.J. area.

Paul Fallon, general manager of Valmont Industries, said new jobs will include certified welders, mechanics, machine operators and support staff that pay well above the average area pay scale. He said he expects the Hazleton area plants will expand from two-shifts to three.

As the country’s only provider of spun concrete, tubular steel and hybrid poles for the power delivery industry, Valmont-Newmark produces raging from transmission and distribution poles to substation structures in any combination of concrete, steel or hybrid (concrete/steel), according to the company Web site.

Kevin O’Donnell, president of CAN DO – Greater Hazleton’s economic development organization, was proud that CAN DO, beginning in 1988, was able to assist a much smaller steel pole manufacturer in growing to become Valmont Industries.

DeCampli said PPL has received approval for the project from the state Public Utility Commission and the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities.

But before construction can begin, an approval is needed from the National Park Service because the route passes through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area and crosses the Appalachian Trail on the corridor of an existing transmission line.