Utilities Liaison Committee Report

Note:  this report is a log, most recent entry at bottom.

Members:

• Jim Carpenter
• Adrienne Summers
• Rosemary Rosensteel

December 4,  Jim called the following people in Allegheny Power (see Official Contacts page)

Luther Cromer who referred me to
Kevin Adelsberger who had Travis Turner return my call
Kevin and Travis cover the Jefferson area.  Travis agreed to

• get contacts to enquire about possible funding burying cable
• provide cost estimates for burying cable (core area : school and post office to Jefferson Auto;  and extended area: to Old Middletown Road)
• see if there are any long range plans for Jefferson

Travis said that the only reason for long range plans would be an increase in buildings (subdivisions and commercial) which would require more lines.  Additional lines would be put up on the same poles.  Therefore, it's not likely that AP would need to tear up any of the streetscape work. 

Joyce Brown, mayor of Burkettsville, recommended Bill Mann in the Hagerstown office as a good contact.

December 4, Jim talked to Jim Buckalew of SHA Utilities section.  He confirmed that our contacts are engineers.  He hasn't seen any permits issued for Jefferson.

December 5, Jim talked to Marie Bleclic of Verizon.  If they had plans to add cable it would be on existing poles.  Our preliminary designs should be submitted to Verizon for a redline request where they check for conflicts and verify existing cable and poles.  She thinks there is underground cable at Lander and 180.

December 28, returned call from Travis Turner who will be on vacation until Jan 2.  Has info on estimates.

January 2, 2001, Travis Turner (Allegheny Power) said cost would be about $1.2 million to bury power lines from P.O. to Jefferson Auto Repair shop and a little of Lander road past gas station.  Includes both sides of roads.  In addition, 

• All houses need to be rewired to accept underground - individual charge of about $900 per service (building)
• Obtain new right of ways from every property owner for new transformers, etc.
• Obtain estimates from Verizon for telephone service

Allegheny Power installed underground power for state on lander & 180 - poss. reuse.  If some owners hold out, possible option is to connect them to existing overhead power lines running between 180 & 340.

Could check funding sources obtained by other towns - start inquiry at Frederick County Gov. level. info:  301-694-9000

Long range: eventually, everything may go underground.  Now:  Maryland tariff requires all new developments to be underground.  Heard that Governor was looking into burying all cable (heard 9 mo. ago) -- may see more grants for streetscape like projects.

January 4, 2001 - Discussions with friends on the train, one is an economist for FTA, resulted in ideas on benefits, a possible cost scenario with ballpark payment estimates, and the type and amount of work required to develop a proposal.

Benefits include appearance (compare like areas of Frederick and other towns with and without buried cable), utilities maintenance cost (get estimates), fewer outages (get records for Jefferson and national avg. for small towns), long term savings compared to burying cable later (ripping up Streetscape and other improvements), ...

The cost scenario starts with the assumption that the cost of burying the cable can be financed (possibly via local bonds), and the utilities can collect the payments through a surcharge.  Assume the total cost of burying cable is $1.8 million (including all hookups).  For 180 properties, that's $10,000 per property.  Financing for 15 years may give payments around $60 per month (rough guess).  Possible tax credits may reduce this to $45-$50.  The conclusion seems to be that we need grants, at least enough to get this down to $10 - $15.

There is a lot of work in putting together a proposal.  More on this later.  Any volunteers?

January 8, 2001  Letter from Travis Turner, Allegheny Power re concerns related to the relocation of the overhead electric lines.  Received as email attachment, MS Word document. ( I saved it as html).