Peermont Project Prepares for Future, Sparks Protest among Some Residents

STONE HARBOR – For two year’s Atlantic City Electric (ACE) has been at work building a new substation in Seven Mile Island and bringing Avalon and Stone Harbor an upgraded power structure meant to meet the needs of the two municipalities now and into the future.
Normally one would expect to see a community that was urging the utility to action and a utility reluctant to undertake the expense. Just the opposite has occurred.
What the utility says is a growing demand for power has led ACE to embark on a multi-million dollar project to upgrade the power infrastructure with a new substation at 60th Street in Avalon, and an upgrade of the electrical grid from 23 kilovolt (kV) to 69kV power. 
The project has also been influenced by storm-related damage to the utility’s infrastructure in recent years. ACE points as well to the age of the current infrastructure and the need for greater redundancy. 
The rub in the process is the new standard for poles to carry transmission lines. The larger steel poles dwarf current wooden poles and have sparked a resistance movement among property owners in Stone Harbor.
A group of property owners formed a non-profit organization and hired legal representation to resist installation of the poles which they say will harm the character of the borough and negatively impact property values. The new organization is Property Owners Against Peermont, Inc.
Discussions have gone on in one form or another since the property owners in Stone Harbor began resisting the project during the early summer. 
In public comment at council meetings, those opposed to ACE’s project are quick to say that they welcome the upgrade to the power infrastructure. What they say they oppose are the poles and the sense of urgency that has allowed no time for consideration of the relative financial and design implications of moving the new transmission lines underground.
For ACE the project is something it has been discussing with both boroughs and planning for three years. 
Construction of the substation began prior to last year’s summer season and the utility agreed to take the summer off from the project so as not to inconvenience the island’s seasonal tourist economy.
Charles Wimberg, vice president, Atlantic City Electric Region, pointed out at a recent meeting that the utility was not required to stop work for the summer. 
It represented another in what Wimberg sees as a number of accommodations the utility has made to make the project as easy as possible on island residents.
From the point of view of ACE, the need for the upgrade is clear. “We don’t spend that kind of money on projects we don’t deem necessary,” Wimberg noted.
The project, moving ahead without any significant obstacles in either borough until June of 2015, included the decommissioning of the old Stone Harbor substation, built for the current 23kV infrastructure. That has added a new dimension of urgency to the efforts, especially now in light of the opposition from property owners in Stone Harbor. 
A meeting with members of the technical project team at the utility’s Mays Landing facility made clear the fact that the utility sees the deadline of May 1 as essential if it is to have the ability to power the island when the more demanding summer season begins.
The new substation is built for the new 64kV power grid being brought to the island. 
The old substation is shut down. The current 23kV grid is being successfully powered from off the island because the demand this time of year is low. Project Manager Dan Woods and Supervising Engineer Jason Tucker explained that the utility cannot successfully power the island once the summer demand kicks in without the new infrastructure.
Public comment at council meetings has included mention of the possible use of generators, but the ACE team says that all plans for any alternative to the new power structure are based on short, temporary glitches to the project completion and would not work for the entire summer season.
One thing the meeting in Mays Landing made clear was that the project, with steel poles, is going forward. ACE has already rearranged its installation sequence to leave the area with the Stone Harbor borough as the final phase of pole construction while discussions went on with residents and the borough, but now actual installation of the poles in the borough is going ahead.
One other accommodation made was an agreement in principal to move the transmission wires underground for a large part of 95th Street where they first emerge from under the bay.
As of Jan. 11, that formal agreement had not yet been signed by all parties, but there is every expectation that it will be.
ACE personnel appear a bit perplexed by the opposition they encountered in Stone Harbor. No similar opposition has taken shape in Avalon where new poles have already gone up. 
The new poles will only be used to bring the dual feed transmission lines onto the island via Avalon Boulevard on one end and Stone Harbor Boulevard on the other. The Stone Harbor feed, from the Court House substation, will briefly go under the bay from a point just west of the 96th Street Bridge and up again on 95th Street.
The poles will replace wood poles and will carry transmission lines from off island to the substation, the distribution lines back out to area residences and business, along with cables necessary for service providers like Verizon and Comcast.
There has been talk among residents of a possible future move to underground transmission lines, which would allow for the removal of the steel poles; however, the practically of such a move is questionable.
To do that at a future date would necessitate not just moving the transmission lines underground, but also the re-installation of the wooden poles for distribution as well as the removal of the steel poles. The work would probably require a level of expense the borough would not want to embrace.
Wimberg also points out that the project will provide the island with greater redundancy in the face of possible power outages. The dual feed system allows the utility to power the island from the lines coming in from either boulevard. 
The “loop” also gives a measure of added redundancy to areas of Middle Township.
The ACE discussion also clarified that the Board of Public Utilities had no role in setting the deadlines for the project, nor was it asked to approve the project. “We did not require BPU approval to do this,” Wimberg said. This was a project motivated by the utility’s assessment of risk and need on the island. Wimberg feels that ACE “has to provide the borough with all the information they have asked for.”
The project, as he and the others at ACE see it, is one in the service of their responsibility to provide safe and reliable service to the boroughs of Avalon and Stone Harbor.
A published letter to residents talked of “aggressive strategies to enhance the likelihood of a successful outcome.” The letter talked of what “may now become a very expensive litigation process.”
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.