Residents: Electric Project’s Bangs Spill Coffee from Mugs, Seek a Shutdown

STONE HARBOR – Atlantic City Electric’s project to upgrade the power infrastructure and its resiliency on Seven Mile Island continues to evoke anger and distrust from many residents of Stone Harbor. 
Borough Council’s Jan. 19 meeting was the scene of continued expressions of outrage. The project, which has thus far worked around but not in the borough, has begun construction in the borough.
Council heard the public’s displeasure with a number of different focus points. 
For a number of 95th Street residents, where the transmission lines from the mainland will emerge after crossing under a part of the Intracoastal Waterway, the issue was the tremendous noise and the vibrations as heavy equipment bangs casings into place.
Promises of sound barriers were never honored, and residents complained that the utility “unilaterally” decided not to use them and made no attempt to notify the public or explain the change.
Tales of strong vibrations that shake the coffee out of mugs and noise at almost double the level permitted by borough ordinance brought statements of sympathy from council but little in the way of action residents sought.
Frank Dallahan, who frequently has served as a spokesperson for the citizens on 95th Street, or Richard Palko, president of the newly-formed Property Owners Against Peermont (POAP) and many others in the audience wanted council to do more.
Dallahan argued that the decimal level of the noise was so far above the level permitted by ordinance that council should “shut them down.”
Palko, whose organization formed largely in opposition to the electric utility’s plan to use new large steel poles to carry power wires for 17 blocks in the borough, acknowledged that the poles were beginning to be installed and vowed retribution for the utility.
His organization had wanted the utility to authorize a delay while an engineer hired by the borough completes a study of the feasibility and cost involved in moving the transmission lines underground rather than overhead on poles. 
Atlantic City Electric maintains that it has no options at this stage. The fact that the old substations that managed the 23kV (kilovolt) system have been decommissioned means that the utility must complete the 69kV system by the beginning of summer when energy use peaks.
Palko asked the borough to have engineers “verify” that the old Stone Harbor substation has indeed been decommissioned. He held out the possibility that “these are scare tactics” from the utility.
Palko said he and other residents were not satisfied that the old system could not be reestablished, a move that would give more time for design and consideration of an underground system for the borough.
Focus of efforts from council appears to be in the future. Borough Solicitor Marcus Karavan explained that the borough had to accept the electric utility’s representations that there was no turning back at this time. Any failure to have a proper power system in place for the summer would have an impact beyond the borough.
Following a closed session, in part on the Peermont Project, council returned to public session and made clear its future focus.
According to Borough Administrator Jill Gougher, council will send a letter to Atlantic City Electric asking a detailed cost estimate for moving the entire structure, distribution and transmission lines along with cables from related entities like Comcast and Verizon, underground at a point in the near future.
This would make the experience with the steel poles temporary and open up the vision of a future without either steel or wooden poles in the borough.
The electric company has repeatedly stated that if it considered a future alteration to underground transmission it would have to be at the borough’s expense.
With the borough, if not all residents, appearing to accept ACE’s representations that the project, as planned, must continue to its fast approaching summer deadline, attention last weekend turned to the impending storm and the impact it might have on the project schedule.
If Atlantic City Electric is to be believed, which is not a view Palko and some others share, the utility has left itself no out but success.
By decommissioning substations that supported the existing power structure early in the project plan, the utility says there is no turning back.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.