Legislators Renew Push for Underground Utility Lines

Nov 09 - The Palm Beach Post

After Hurricane Wilma left more than 3.2 million Florida Power & Light Co. customers without electricity, U.S. Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. decided it was time to do more to encourage utilities to put power lines underground.

Shaw plans to file a bill this week or early next week that would allow electrical utilities to take a tax deduction for the cost of putting above-ground power lines underground in one year, rather than the 15 years the law allows now.

The bill would not require utilities to bury existing above-ground lines, Shaw said, because that could cause customers to pay higher electric bills to cover the costs.

"I know the power companies will say that, economically, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but if we're in for 20 years of hurricanes, it makes a lot of sense," Shaw, R-Fort Lauderdale, told reporters Tuesday, referring to predictions of a decades-long period of increased hurricane activity.

From a safety and aesthetics standpoint, Shaw said, it would be preferable to bury power lines, "but the main thing is that we will not have these outages, which have been tremendously inconvenient."

Shaw's comments came as more than 91,000 customers remained without electricity Tuesday, more than two weeks after Wilma, a Category 2 hurricane that wreaked unexpectedly high damage, roared through South Florida.

Meanwhile, state Sen. Steven Geller, D-Hallandale Beach, called for legislative hearings to determine whether FPL utility poles were repaired properly after last year's hurricanes.

"FPL claims that much of the power pole damage may have been caused by microbursts and wind gusts beyond the tolerance level of many poles," Geller wrote in a letter to Sen. Lee Constantine, R-Altamonte Springs, chairman of the Senate Communications and Public Utilities Committee. "Because of this uncertainty, we need public hearings to clarify the facts so that we can prevent these outages and determine if there is a legislative or regulatory solution."

Geller is not alone in pushing to scrutinize FPL's electrical grid.

State Sen. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, said last week he would reintroduce a bill that would look at all of the state's utilities, including telephone and cable, and assess their ability to weather severe storms. The bill would create a utility task force that would include officials from the state's electric, telephone and cable companies, as well as engineers and scientists.

"Let's do a cost-benefit analysis of burying some of our power lines," Klein said. "I'm not saying bury all of them, but if people say they saw trees come down on power lines, that's what they say."

State Rep. Irv Slosberg, D-Boca Raton, said he would reintroduce his version of the utility bill, too, and is pushing for a study to examine whether customers served by underground power lines lost power to the same degree as customers who get power from above-ground lines.

FPL's "grid system has a problem, and this we have to address," Slosberg said.

FPL spokeswoman Pat Davis said the company is "not opposed to the concept of underground (power lines). We like underground. It works really well in a lot of applications, and aesthetically, we know a lot of our customers like it."

But Davis warned that underground lines are not "always the silver bullet" people believe they will be.

Besides the cost, Davis noted that underground lines are susceptible to outages caused by severe flooding and are more difficult to repair. As a result, outages "may be characterized by weeks instead of days."

Shaw said he did not buy the argument that underground lines are prone to flooding outages. There were relatively few outages in new developments in the western parts of South Florida counties where power lines are required to be underground, he said.

Shaw said he does not expect his bill to be considered before next year.

-----

To see more of The Palm Beach Post -- including its homes, jobs, cars and other classified listings -- or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.palmbeachpost.com.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

FPL,