Five years after breaking ground, the Red Rock Hydroelectric Power project is nearing completion. Vern Cochran with Missouri River Energy Services says most of the work on the downstream side and the powerhouse structure is finished.

“Missouri River Energy Services has gotten rid of their construction trailer and we are now working out of the powerhouse where our control room and final offices will be,” he says. “It’s about a 90-93 percent completion on the powerhouse.”

The challenge has been upstream work, and after several record flooding events over the past five years, Cochran says most of their delays have come from high waters and strong wind events.

“The length of the project has dragged out quite a bit, but consider we had over 280 days of flooding that were out of our control, so it doesn’t put us that far past our initial finish date when you subtract the flooding days.”

Overall, he says the project is on track to be producing power early next year, with substantial completion expected by the fall of 2020. Hear more about the latest with the Red Rock Hydroelectric Project on today’s Let’s Talk Pella.