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May 15, 2003Wiring: $10,000 a home?ByRecord-Eagle staff writer TRAVERSE CITY - Traverse City Light and Power is reviewing a policy that would require homeowners to pay some of the cost of underground wiring - estimated at upward of $10,000 per household in the Central neighborhood. After getting more grief than gratitude for a major underground utility project downtown last summer, the city-owned utility started work on a formal policy outlining how the removal of overhead electric lines will be handled in the future. Last summer, utility officials removed dozens of power poles from Hall Street and Grandview Parkway and buried the electric lines as part of a new downtown electrical substation. But the project quickly turned controversial when residents of the Central neighborhood were surprised and angered over an 80-foot steel tower that went up along Wadsworth Street as part of the work. Some residents sued the utility over the tower's location. The case is still pending. Light and Power Executive Director Rich Smith said this week that a formal policy for future underground wiring projects could help eliminate such problems by specifying how such work is planned and paid for by the utility. To date Light and Power has taken on such projects on a case-by-case basis. The policy as drafted would require utility customers who request underground power lines - home and business owners - to pay the difference between the cost of replacing above-ground wiring with burying the lines. Smith said that is a standard practice for most utilities and electric cooperatives. But those upset with the utility over the Wadsworth issue say the new policy will not do much to help rid them of the unwanted tower. "Now that the tower is located in our neighborhood, they want us to pay to move it," said former Central neighborhood president Adrienne Rossi. Cost estimates for underground work in the Central neighborhood that would include moving the tower are close to $10 million. While the utility has offered to pick up close to $4 million of those costs to bury the 69,000-volt primary distribution lines, it would still cost each household upward of $10,000 to get underground service, according to utility estimates. "The amount of money they're talking about is enormous," Rossi said. She said she believes there are few parts of town that can take on those kinds of costs, making it unlikely that any significant progress will be made to move the Wadsworth tower. Smith said installing underground lines, especially in urban areas where there are sidewalks, streets and other buried utilities to deal with, can cost up to $1,000 per foot. That is a major expense for small utilities already facing power generation and distribution challenges created through the deregulation of the state's electric industry. "It becomes very expensive," Smith said. "Spending millions of dollars on putting some overhead lines underground certainly doesn't make us more competitive." Under the proposal, the utility would continue to pay the full cost of burying underground lines in places deemed as public or commons areas, such as major commercial districts or around public parks or other civic properties. Such was the case with the Hall Street area. That approach also is in line with what is going on in other communities, Smith said. "There are areas in town where (an underground line) benefits all of the people," he said. "For us, it makes sense to make that kind of investment in your community." Utility officials are meeting with neighborhood groups to get their comments before acting on the policy later this summer.
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