The town of Tuz, Iraq has played a significant role in Coalition operations since 2003, and today more of its 15,000 residents have reliable electricity.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in northern Iraq completed an electrical network project in February that brings electricity generated at the Bayji power plant to approximately 3,000 Iraqi homes in this village located 110 miles north of Baghdad.

“We expanded the existing distribution system so that the same amount of electricity could be provided to more homes in the neighborhood,” said Oni Gomez, resident engineer in the Gulf Region North district’s Tikrit Resident Office.

Rehabilitating the existing Tuz power network included installing 30 new transformers, as well as eight kilometers of conductors and power poles, Gomez added. The contractor began work in October 2007 and the project was turned over to the Director of Electricity in Tuz on Feb. 12. The $1.1 million project was funded through the Economic Support Fund.

“The way forward from here is for power generation to be increased,” Gomez said, “so that the system we installed in this project can be used to its full potential.”

The Gulf Region North district provides project and construction management services for military and civil construction in the seven Northern provinces of Iraq, helping the new provincial governments assume responsibility for managing their infrastructure development, as well as the capability to sustain it.

To date, the Gulf Region North district has completed 207 reconstruction projects in the Salah ah Din province, totaling $209 million. Another 28 projects are currently ongoing, totaling $64.4 million.

MNF-I