Lines and limbs, a bad combination
Why electricity still arrives on poles instead of underground
A remote pole down a dirt road? Nope, downtown Orleans.
***
Cruising around when the power was down, we would shout out utility truck sitings which reminded me when as kids on a long trip we played a game trying to be the first to see a certain make and color of car.
They say there were 1500 trucks or crews on the Cape trying to get the lights on. As they made progress, come evening, motel and restaurant parking lots would fill with big white trucks, cherrypickers and yellow flashers, and my mind would go in two directions:
Marveling that these men and women are able to revive a circulatory infrastructure of such complexity, electric veins and arteries, capillaries and aortas supplying every nook of the body of the Cape — then wondering why we go through this same frustrating, dangerous surgical repair and ritual every time the wind blows.
When I moved into my little home a decade ago, up a small hill and through a swath of pines — not Scots, by the way! — we dug a trench and buried the final run of electricity, replacing old private poles. Walking through those pines after the blow, firing up the chain saw, I saw that if we hadn’t dug that trench, we might still be without power.
We keep being told the same thing:
It’s too expensive to bury electricity, though once you do hurricanes can come and the lights stay on. I found myself wondering how private utilities come to that conclusion. Then I wondered how much it costs for 1500 crews to repair the same lines and poles over and over again, making well-deserved double and triple time, eating and sleeping away from home.
I did a little research.
Reports and testimony, often from utility company executives but also from the public side, state that burying wires is one expensive proposition — though how expensive is a matter of debate. It’s been said the going rate is anywhere from $1 million per mile to $6 million per mile, from five times as expensive as poles-and-line to ten times. Excavation is a big part of it.
While musing about this I was detouring through Orleans, where much of the downtown has been dug up to create wastewater infrastructure. Every single home and business is being linked for a hookup. Trenches and pipes have been laid everywhere, all the expense and effort of digging up the roads a done deal.
Was electric conduit running alongside the pipes? No.
Yarmouth and Mashpee have decided that like other Cape towns they will soon bite the bullet and deal with the scourge of wastewater pollution; hats off to both town meetings and leadership.
Here’s hoping they seize the opportunity and insist that burying electric lines needs to be part of the plan. With taxpayers already footing the bill for the big digs, it should be a no-brainer for the utility company to get rid of the poles and sink lines.
Why more of this hasn’t happened is an interesting question.
Utility companies like Eversource are private, though serve a crucial public function. That means they are driven by profit to shareholders, with corporate returns reported every quarter of the year. As we’ve learned many times, that creates a very strong incentive for business leaders to think short term, do whatever they can to boost quarterly profits even if it means avoiding longer-term investments – like burying power lines.
Next time you see a pole listing 20 degrees hugged by a swaying oak, or a new pole wedged beside an old one with a transformer (or three) slung between them, remember the quarterly return.
Long as we’re going down the rabbit hole – or not going down a hole – have you ever wondered why public utility companies are private in the first place?
Believe it or not, there was a time when municipal utilities were not just allowed, they were embraced. To this day 15 percent of all Massachusetts electric users are served by publicly owned and operated utilities, most of them in smaller towns like Concord, Reading, Marblehead, Ipswich, but also bigger places like Taunton, Braintree, Belmont, Wellesley.
All of these “municipal light plants” were created before 1926, because that year, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law banning them. That law, of course, was created by and for private utilities who didn’t want competition.
Funny, but these municipal utilities have a far better track record at the following things: Buried power lines, fewer outages and faster repairs, lower rates. Hull took advantage of public structure to become a pioneer in creating wind energy as well.
So profound thanks to those hardworking people who restored our power. Please take no offense when I wish we didn’t need your fine efforts as often as we do. Maybe our towns will find a way to hire you to lay conduit instead of plant poles.
In the meantime, see you soon.
NEXT: CLEARCUT 170 ACRES TO FIRE MACHINE GUNS? SERIOUSLY?
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Totally agree. My husband, from Sweden, finds it folly to have our electricity put in peril with each winter storm or hurricane.
Over a decade ago, Chatham's business community was offered placing downtown electric lines underground at the same time, I believe, that sewer lines were being installed. It could have been financed by an extra penny on their electric rates. They opted not to do so. Other downtowns might choose otherwise.
Utilities have little incentive to reduce recurring costs, as they are allowed to pass them on to customers in increased rates. Burying lines would be a long term investment that they should be encouraged to pursue, through changes in legislation or accounting.
When I was interim project manager in the earliest days of Roosevelt Island, NY, we decided to build utility tunnels under the sidewalks. All utilities could be accommodated, including legal separation between electrical, communications, water and sewer. Removable slabs above would eliminate tearing up pavement on street or sidewalk.