Tyson & Breanna Cameron, our partners on Kennington Farms LLC, took this photo along Legacy Highway north of Salt Lake CityTwo articles having to do with buried transmission lines.
Why won't ATC bury the lines?
Critics say there's no good reason they can't be out of sight
Vikki Kratz on Thursday 10/25/2007, Madison, WI
http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=11741
It's been done in Chicago, Boston, San Diego and San Francisco. The state of Connecticut passed a law requiring it whenever possible. And it's commonplace in Europe, Asia, Australia and Canada. Burying transmission lines — even at voltages as high as 500 kilovolts — is an industry trend worldwide.
"Typically, they just get buried and left there," says Ian Hiskens, a professor of electrical engineering at UW-Madison. "No one really thinks about it too much." Yet American Transmission Company adamantly opposes burying any part of the 345-kilovolt line it wants to build in Dane County. . .
But much of what the company alleges about underground lines — high cost, maintenance issues and environmental concerns — has been called into question.
Last year, a group of Beltline business owners and local officials formed the Coalition for an Underground Alternative. The group says building a huge transmission line along the Beltline corridor could depress property values, hurt sensitive economic development projects and ruin the UW's Arboretum. And the group says ATC is misleading the public about the feasibility of undergrounding. . .
"Within five years, it's possible all [transmission lines] will be underground," says (CUA Attorney Harvey) Temkin. "The country is moving in that direction. Do we want to be the last place that's just got these god-awful overhead lines?"
. . . Black & Veatch, a consulting firm that works on underground projects . . . noted that, in the U.S., it typically costs $10 million-$13 million per mile to bury a 345-kilovolt line. In Europe, the cost for undergrounding lines drops to $6 million per mile. (An overhead line costs between $2 million and $6 million per mile.)
. . . At a meeting this July, Middleton Ald. Bill Hoeksema asked Mark Williamson, ATC's vice president of major projects, how much the monthly charge for ratepayers would be. "He did some math and said, 70 cents a month," recalls Hoeksema. "It winds up being a small cost. . .
Overhead lines are subject to damage from lightning, wind, ice, even an out-of-control semi on the Beltline. But underground lines are not affected by any of that. "Once a cable is buried, there are no maintenance issues at all," says Hiskens. "Really, the only issue is if some turkey digs it up."
Even then, it can be a relatively easy fix. When a bulldozer accidentally pulled up a 400-kilovolt line in Sydney, Australia, says Hiskens, "they had it fixed within a week."
The Coalition for an Underground Alternative recently received a letter from a consultant who suggested that an overhead line could reduce property values by 14% or more. . .
CUA's website: http://www.burytheline.com/
Outside of Portland, OregonOverhead poles need a quick burial
Monday, May 09, 2005 By MARIA SAPORTA The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
http://www.hopeofgeorgia.com/?script=articles/view&id=FC0BB0BAFFCD4B279AB10671033C7DD2
Ask just about anyone how they feel about overhead power lines, and a chorus answers in unison: Bury them. The general public — from business leaders to community activists to developers and urban planners — can't understand why we are still installing huge power poles with high intensity transmission lines in our cities, towns and countryside. About the only voice, albeit a powerful one, speaking against burying transmission lines is that of the Georgia Power Co.
The utility's main rationale is cost. Georgia Power officials say it costs about three times as much to bury lines than to install poles as high as 170 feet and as wide as 7 feet to carry lines with 230 kilovolts of power. . .
Harry Orton, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based international consultant on transmission lines, was flabbergasted when told that overhead transmission lines had just been installed in central Atlanta. "I'm just amazed," Orton says. "Almost every city I've worked in around the world, they wouldn't even contemplate putting in overhead lines in the downtown area because of the aesthetics, the safety concerns and concerns of electromagnetic fields. It's crazy."
Less than a year ago, Connecticut passed a law requiring that new high-voltage transmission lines be buried. "It changes the focus of the design from looking at the least cost, most technically feasible way of doing it to expanding the design to look first at underground," says Frank Poirot, a spokesman for Northeast Utilities. "We first look at underground rather than overhead when we design new transmission lines."
That is the norm in major world capitals, Orton says. "In most cities around the world, there are no alternatives," he says. "You have to go underground." Orton says it is more expensive to bury lines. But when the lifetime costs of maintenance, repair and efficiencies are included in a budget analysis, the differential narrows.
What is not included in that analysis is the societal costs of placing gigantic overhead lines in communities experiencing an economic renaissance. "When you install 230 kilovolt overhead lines in your area, the property values go down dramatically," Orton says. "It's a cost savings for the utility but unfortunately, everybody else loses out. It's very shortsighted because you destroy the aesthetics. Suddenly a beautiful area becomes a not-so-beautiful area. . . "
Now the choice for Atlanta and Georgia is to bury or not to bury — whether we will favor long-term beauty over short-term cost savings. It is up to us.
