Bury the Power Lines in Greenwich?

At Monday night’s public forum on burying power lines in Greenwich, the only numbers as exorbitant as the costs of recent storm damage were the estimated prices of burying utility lines in the hope of preventing future power outages, damages and repairs. The forum was convened and moderated by State Rep. Fred Camillo (R-151). Though only modestly attended, the session featured a lively question-and-answer session.

By the close of the forum, most of the approximately 50 attendees had a chance to direct questions to the five panelists: Chairman of Greenwich’s Architectural Review Board, Paul Pugliesi; State Sen. Scott Frantz (R-36); CL&P Manager for Engineering and Construction, Karl Petschauer; CL&P Project Manager for Greenwich Infrastructure Upgrade, John Siclari; and CL&P Manager of Governmental Affairs, Tom Dorsey.

Overhead Lines + Freak Storm = Inconvenience, Expense, Mangled Trees
Camillo lamented costs to residents of recent storms including hotel bills, perished food, tree cleanup, generators, time lost from work and, tragically, a few deaths which he attributed mostly to generators being brought indoors.

CL&P’s Dorsey characterized the situation as a public policy issue involving balancing a love of trees with engineering challenges and hefty pricetags. “It comes down to a public policy decision. What do we want to spend to protect our infrastructure?” He went on to suggest that rather than burying all power lines, “Maybe we want to do undergrounding to protect specific infrastructure in parts of town.”

CL&P’s Petschauer elaborated, saying that the utility is doing a complete inspection of current underground facilities to see whether there are specific projects needed. Explaining that it might make sense to bury lines along certain corridors or in town centers, he described CL&P’s current project to bury seven miles of new wire between Cos Cob and North Street.

Seclari, the CL&P Project Manager for Greenwich described what would be entailed in burying all lines in town. “You’re looking at $1.2 billion to bury 347 miles of overhead utilities. That’s $31.2 million per year for 40 years … which is overwhelming. By the time you finish, you’d have to start again.”

Dorsey detailed the challenge, explaining that overhead lines are not limited to electricity. “Cable lines and telephone land lines are also overhead and would remain strung from poles unless the three utilities, each with its own engineers, were to cooperate.”

Seclari went on to describe the “long, long process” of “tearing up roads and acquiring easements on properties in order to put electrical lines underground … transformers, capacitors, switches are all currently overhead and…just to bury the electric, the duct structure would have to be encased in concrete and take a lot of space,” he said, indicating with his hands a pathway roughly 18 inches in diameter. “You don’t just lay it in a hole,” he said. “Because of existing infrastructure and rock ledge there is no room. And even if you did, you’d hit root systems … You gotta take trees down which defeats some of the purpose.”

Aesthetics: “Why not get rid of the Eyesore?”
A point of agreement between the two camps was that of aesthetics. According to Architectural Review Committee’s Pugliesi, who is also a member of the Greenwich Preservation Trust, “A few years ago there were two or three wires attached to the poles. Now a huge number of lines are going from pole to pole and then on to the houses. There’s cable, telephone landlines, fiber optic bundles three-inches in diameter … resulting in more and more visual clutter.”

Pugliesi used Byram as an example, where, “People said if you’re installing new sidewalks and new trees and utility poles and traffic light poles, why not get rid of the eyesore … the blight on the neighborhood (overhead lines) and maybe putting lines behind the buildings rather in front where they are susceptible to trees and activity on the street – cars and people – are vulnerable.”

Run the power lines through the existing sewer system
Frantz piped in with a bit of well-timed levity, saying that one of the most creative suggestions he had heard was to run the power lines through the existing sewer system. Then, while everyone was chuckling, he tossed out some numbers. “It would cost $1.3 billion for 350 miles of above ground wires to be buried in Greenwich. Across the state, 23-24,000 miles of above ground wires, or $1 million per mile. It’s basic math … average monthly and yearly bills would double.”

"In Europe … their lines are underground. If they can do it, so can we.”
Byram Shore Road resident Virgil de la Cruz disagreed and did not mince words. “The benefits far outweight the costs of burying the lines. In this day and age, $1.3 billion is really not a lot of money. We are a new country … roughly 300 years old. In Europe, which is thousands of years old, their lines are underground. If they can do it, so can we,” he said emphatically, his comments receiving a round of applause from the audience.

In the recent storm, "the last customers to get restored their power were often those with buried lines"
In response, Siclari, shrugged. “I’d like to see it in town centers like Cos Cob, Old Greenwich and Byram.” Citing the expenses involved, he said that with specific projects like town centers you get “the biggest bang for the buck.” Siclari added that other towns in Connecticut such as Danbury, New London, New Britain and Meriden have projects to bury power lines in their town centers, and that often, new residential communities are in a position to start out with buried lines. Yet, cautioned Dorsey, “The last customers to get restored their power were often those with buried lines,” because “once the power is out, water seeps down and you have faults. You have to come in and dig with a specialized crew. So, it’s somewhat ironic that the last to be restored were often those with buried lines.”

A look at the tree policy
Nick Edwards, RTM member, District 8, Cos Cob, was wasn’t optimistic either. “It’s tremendously impractical and unrealistic. Undergrounding is way off. Pie in the sky. Just watching them put a sewer line up Bible Street was unbearably complicated,” Edwards said to audible groans of agreement. “Plus, if you cut the trees down, they’ll grow back in a few years. We have to look at our tree policy. If we plant a tree under the lines, what can we expect will happen?”

Hazard Tree: When a property owner won’t remove a dying tree
Camillo shared a story of a neighbor’s two trees that had fallen on his property, yet he was responsible for the cleanup. Years later, a third tree, decaying and leaning toward his property threatened a similar demise. Camillo’s lawyer advised sending a letter to the neighbor in order to involve insurance companies and encourage preventive action.

Riverside resident, Tom Waurishuk, echoed the comments about a lack of tree policy. “Why can’t CL&P put up a website so that if you have a tree that is diseased or a problem, or may likely come down, and say I want CL&P to take it down?” He described it as “a simple fix. Just get permission from the people.”

CL&P’s Dorsey acknowledged that might be a good idea. “We’ve got to take a look at our trees and address hazard trees. Getting permission from the landowner is not always easy. But a lot more people are looking carefully at their trees now.”

Malkin: Legislation is required
One of the dozen or so residents who were vocal and in favor of Greenwich burying all power lines was Peter Malkin. “We have a time of historically low interest rates and you’ll never have a better time to get long-term financing. It would provide jobs, be low cost and you could get bonds and spread the cost out over years. Just have the utility regulators coordinate it,” he said. “Addressing Representative Camillo," Malkin continued. “You and Scott (Frantz) are not facing up to the issue that what’s required is legislation. To say there’s no money to do these things is no good. It doesn’t take any government money to do these things.”

 “This is a debate that should happen,” said Dorsey toward the end of the forum. With the crowd split into two camps, everyone agreed to disagree. For the moment. “This is only a beginning. A good start,” said Camillo.

CL&P Engineers distributed a list of references to studies of underground electric lines:

http://www.eei.org/ourissues/electricitydistribution/Documents/UndergroundReport.pdf

http://www.dom.com/storm-center/overhead-vs-underground-electric-lines.jsp

http://www.entergy.com/2008_hurricanes/Underground-lines.pdf           

http://www.sceg.com/NR/rdonlyres/465E6534-2FFB-4069-BF84-81465AEEF887/0/%20Undergroundvs.pdf           

http://www.chelco.com/energy_news/ezines/july_aug_2010_ezine.pdf