Northwest Public-Works Bid Digest: Week of September 7, 2026

This is our weekly roundup of open public-works bid opportunities across the Northwest that matter to electrical and utility contractors — transmission and distribution work, substations, plant electrical and controls, and the material and service packages that go with them. We update it every Monday. Every listing below came off the owner's own solicitation page, links back to it, and had a bid due date in the future when we published. Some weeks that's a dozen jobs; some weeks it's a handful. This is a handful week: four verified with dates, plus two Cowlitz PUD items worth a phone call — not a padded list.

It's a Washington-heavy board this week. We ran the usual WA/OR/ID/MT portals — OregonBuys, Idaho's Division of Public Works and SicommNet, Montana's eMACS and university boards — and nothing electrical or utility with a live future date turned up that we could verify against the owner's page in Oregon, Idaho, or Montana; the Idaho Falls fiber packages that ran recent weeks have closed. One short-fuse note up front: the Cowlitz County pump-station supply package closes Tuesday, September 8 at 9:00 AM — if you're not already on it, treat it as reference. Here's what's open.

This Week at a Glance

Project	Agency	Location	Bid Due
Wood Pole Inspection, Test & Treatment (PT26-0181F)	Tacoma Power	Tacoma, WA	Sep 15, 2026, 11:00 AM PT
Mayfield Bank 2 GSU Transformer (PT26-0110F)	Tacoma Power	Silver Creek, WA	Oct 6, 2026, 11:00 AM PT
Shadow Mountain Pump Station (2026-0038-01)	Cowlitz County Public Works	Cowlitz County, WA	Sep 8, 2026, 9:00 AM PT
Shadow Mountain Water System — Water Main & Booster Pump Station (2026-0040-01)	Cowlitz County Public Works	Cowlitz County, WA	Sep 28, 2026, 1:30 PM PT

Wood Pole Inspection, Test & Treatment (PT26-0181F) — Tacoma Power

Tacoma Power's Transmission & Distribution division has its wood-pole services contract out — inspection of wood utility poles, testing, and treatment of decay across the system. It's a services/maintenance package aimed at crews that run pole inspection and groundline treatment rather than at line-construction bidders, and it's the same solicitation that carried over from last week, so there's still runway on it.

• Due: Tuesday, September 15, 2026, 11:00 AM PT, spec PT26-0181F.
• Pre-bid: A virtual pre-bid meeting over Microsoft Teams is referenced in the solicitation's Calendar of Events (around page 11); it isn't flagged mandatory, but confirm the date and dial-in in the documents.
• Scope: Inspection of wood utility poles, testing, and treatment of decay for Tacoma Power's T&D system.
• Source: City of Tacoma request for bids PT26-0181F

Worth checking: Confirm the prequalification requirement first — Tacoma Power maintains a prequalified list for distribution, transmission, and substation work, generally expected to be in place when the solicitation is advertised. As a multi-year, unit-priced maintenance contract, read for the estimated annual pole counts, the treatment specification and any warranty on treated poles, and how mobilization and travel get paid. Confirm bid-security and performance-bond percentages, Washington prevailing wage (L&I intent/affidavit filing), and traffic-control constraints for poles in occupied right-of-way.

Mayfield Bank 2 GSU Transformer (PT26-0110F) — Tacoma Power

This one's a material procurement, not a construction job — Tacoma Power is soliciting for a three-phase 13.8/240 kV, 38.4/51.2/64 MVA generator step-up (GSU) transformer with an isolated-phase bus connection for Bank 2 at the Mayfield Hydroelectric Project. It's a fit for transformer manufacturers and their reps, and for the specialty crews that handle GSU delivery, setting, and bus tie-in, rather than for general bidders.

• Due: Tuesday, October 6, 2026, 11:00 AM PT, spec PT26-0110F.
• Pre-proposal meeting: September 9, 2026, 11:00 AM PDT at the Mayfield Hydroelectric Project, 253 Hydro Lane, Silver Creek, WA — listed as non-mandatory.
• Scope: Furnish a three-phase 13.8/240 kV, 38.4/51.2/64 MVA generator step-up transformer and isolated-phase bus connection.
• Source: City of Tacoma request for proposals PT26-0110F

Worth checking: On a GSU buy the long-lead schedule is the whole game, so read for the required delivery date and any liquidated damages tied to it before you price it. Nail down the tap configuration, impedance and BIL, cooling stages (the 38.4/51.2/64 MVA rating is your ONAN/ONAF/ONAF steps), and whether the isolated-phase bus, bushings, and any monitoring are in the supply scope or by others. Confirm factory and field test requirements, and who owns offloading, setting, and commissioning at a hydro site with tight access. Check the bonding, warranty term, and payment/retention structure for a multi-month equipment order.

Shadow Mountain Pump Station (2026-0038-01) — Cowlitz County Public Works

Cowlitz County Public Works has a potable booster pump-station supply package out. It's described as a packaged station: pump, piping, sensors, variable-frequency drives, and a programmable logic controller. For an electrical or controls estimator the interesting part is the drives and PLC scope, so the first thing to settle is whether this is a furnish-only equipment buy or furnish-and-install. It's the short fuse of the week — bids close Tuesday morning.

• Due: Tuesday, September 8, 2026, 9:00 AM PT, listed under bid 2026-0038-01.
• Scope: Packaged potable booster pump station — pump, piping, sensors, VFDs, and PLC.
• Source: Cowlitz County bidding opportunities

Worth checking: "Supplier shall provide" is the pivot — read the package to confirm whether you're furnishing a packaged station to the county or installing it, because that decides whether prevailing wage and a construction schedule even apply. On the controls side, read for the PLC/SCADA integration point, the sensor and telemetry list, whether the county's existing controls platform is specified, and who owns startup and commissioning. Confirm the delivery or substantial-completion date, any liquidated damages, and the bid-security requirement.

Shadow Mountain Water System — Water Main & Booster Pump Station (2026-0040-01) — Cowlitz County Public Works

Running alongside the supply package, Cowlitz County has the installation side of the same system out as a separate construction contract: roughly 62 linear feet of 12-inch water main, about 1,050 feet of 8-inch main, and installation of the booster pump station. For an electrical/controls sub this is where the pump-station wiring, the drive and PLC hookup, and the site power and telemetry live — the piece that pairs with the supply buy above.

• Due: Monday, September 28, 2026, 1:30 PM PT, listed under bid 2026-0040-01.
• Scope: Construct ~62 lf of 12-inch and ~1,050 lf of 8-inch water main and install the booster pump station.
• Source: Cowlitz County bidding opportunities

Worth checking: This is a public-works construction contract, so expect Washington prevailing wage (L&I intent/affidavit filings) and a bid-security/performance-bond requirement — verify the percentages. Read the coordination language between this contract and the packaged-station supply above: who receives, sets, and warrants the station, and where your install scope picks up. On the electrical side, pin down the service point and utility coordination, controls/telemetry termination responsibility, and startup and commissioning. Confirm the substantial-completion date, any liquidated damages, and whether a pre-bid walk is scheduled.

Also Open, Worth a Call

Two Cowlitz PUD items are posted on the utility's bid-documents page but don't show a due date on the summary listing, and the page mixes live packets with bid tabulations from closed jobs — so treat these as call-arounds and confirm both the status and the deadline with the PUD before you build anything.

• Cowlitz PUD — Swift No. 2 13.8 kV Bus Upgrade, Equipment Procurement (SW191). An electrical equipment procurement tied to the Swift No. 2 substation-class bus upgrade. Posted on Cowlitz PUD's bid documents page; no due date on the summary, so confirm it's still open and get the deadline and submittal method from the PUD.
• Cowlitz PUD — Underground Conduit Installation, Woodland/Kalama (UC1854). Conduit installation for underground distribution, carried over from prior weeks and still listed on the same bid documents page. No posted due date on the summary — pull the packet and confirm the deadline before you commit crews.

Cowlitz PUD's contracts line is 360.423.2210 if you want to confirm status on either before spending time on the documents.

Before You Chase These

Four verified with dates, two worth a call, and a Washington-only board — that's the week. A lot of the summer's Northwest utility work has already closed, and the short-fuse fiber and material packages that filled recent digests have gone quiet. That's the case for watching this weekly: the Cowlitz County pump-station supply closes Tuesday, the Tacoma transformer procurement runs to October, and the two undated Cowlitz PUD items are exactly the kind of call-around you miss if you're not looking every Monday.

Dates and times above were verified against each owner's own solicitation page the day we published, but addenda move targets — always confirm the current due date, submission method, and any pre-bid requirement on the source page before you build your bid.

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If you're bidding one of these, we can turn the solicitation into a full AI bid brief — bonds, prevailing wage, owner-furnished equipment, submittal windows, and the rest — at deadfront.ai; see real example briefs for how they read.