[Vision2020] Avista & Trees

[Saundra Lund]

In part, Dan wrote:
"Buried power would be great, but in talking to a few Avista electricians
I've learned that it has it's own drawbacks, not the least of which is
finding where a line may be compromised underground."

I'd be interested in learning more about the pros & cons of underground
utilities.

Back in the Dark Ages of my youth (1970), we moved into a brand-spanking new
subdivision in CA where *all* of the utilities were buried underground.  It
was wonderful not having those ugly lines everywhere, and the PG&E workers
loved it, too, and said it made their jobs much easier -- reportedly, it was
even easier to find the locations of problems with the computer programs
they were using.  And, our service was pretty stable, too -- just like here,
there were very few outages.

IIRC, it was a lot more expensive to put things underground, and I'm
assuming that increased initial cost was passed along to the consumers
either in increased house costs or higher utility rates.  The rationale at
the time was that the increased initial costs would be made up over time
with fewer problems from weather, trees, etc.  I don't know if that every
proved to be true, though, but since other cities and towns are still
putting utilities underground, it must work pretty well.

I was back in the old neighborhood a year or two ago, and all the utilities
are still below ground.  The trees -- and shade -- are phenomenal and
beautiful with no butchering or removal to accommodate utility lines.

Of course, all of that was back in the Dark Ages when I was a kid who
*thought* I had better things to pay attention to  ;-)



Saundra Lund
Moscow, ID

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do
nothing.
- Edmund Burke

***** Original material contained herein is Copyright 2006 through life plus
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-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Carscallen [mailto:areaman at moscow.com] 
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2007 4:30 PM
To: 'Saundra Lund'; 'Vision 2020'
Subject: RE: [Vision2020] Avista & Trees

Saundra writes in part:
". . . I thought I'd put the text here for discussion, comments,
suggestions, etc."

While I'd just as soon leave the trees, I'd not like to see Moscow end
up in an emergency situation during a severe weather event that might
cause trees to fall on power lines creating outages.  

Those trees are real nice 'til they cut you out of power for a few days.
Then they are the debbil.

Buried power would be great, but in talking to a few Avista electricians
I've learned that it has it's own drawbacks, not the least of which is
finding where a line may be compromised underground.

DC