Utility Explains Phase 2, Wood Poles

STONE HARBOR – Just when it seemed the highly controversial Atlantic City Electric (ACE) Peermont Project on Seven Mile Island was over, the utility announced phase 2. 
A team from the utility attended the Oct. 4 Borough Council meeting to explain the next effort which involves new feeder distribution lines running from the substation at 60th Street in Avalon to 95th Street in Stone Harbor.
The utility cited potential benefits of the project regarding better maintenance, a higher level of resiliency and better wildlife protection. They argued that the new lines will allow for greater segmentation of the customer base, providing flexibility to switch customers between feeds in situations where there may be a loss of power.
What they did not explain is why the utility did not make clear that a phase 2 would follow phase 1 given that their presentation asserted that the second part of the project was in the Peermont plan from the outset.
The utility that angered many residents with transmission lines and large steel poles has repeatedly asked the public for trust and cooperation; yet the surprise that was apparent in the comments of council members, as well as residents, showed the utility, might have been more transparent about its project from the start.
The presentation of phase 2 prompted some on the council to ask if there is a phase 3 or 4. The response was that this phase of the project, planned for late January to mid-April 2017, completes the “Peermont family of projects,” according to the company’s representatives.
The caveat added was that the statement did not mean that there might not be other infrastructure work planned for the island.
The problem, aside from the level of distrust that has grown in the borough, is that the new distribution feeder system will require more new poles.
Instead of the steel poles used in phase 1, the utility is promising wooden poles will replace existing wooden poles along the route the utility has already selected.
This includes a several block section of First Avenue thereby encroaching on the beach blocks. The poles would also have a larger circumference, said to be minor.
The new poles will be 45-feet tall, on average five feet taller than existing poles, and will have more wires along the top than existing poles.
Engineering phraseology dominated much of the presentation. That made it difficult for some to understand the nuances of the project. What was key to the utility’s presentation was the assertion that this part of the project would take the “level of reliability to the next level.”
The route selected includes moving down 2nd Avenue from 80th Street to 83rd Street. Then the path will turn down 83rd Street to First Avenue and continue on First Avenue to 95th Street.
Many residents of 83rd Street have been working to gain approval and collect commitments for sufficient funds to have the utility move their electric infrastructure underground. They are faced with the prospect of larger wooden poles, instead of underground wiring.
While some on the council asked if work done on 83rd Street as part of this project could amicably marry with the efforts of residents and result in underground placement, the response was not hopeful.
The utility maintains that moving the distribution feeder infrastructure underground is much more complicated than just moving normal distribution to customer infrastructure.
ACE also said that budgets and plans call for the work to be done now and waiting to explore other options did not seem to be a strong possibility.
These residents are now facing an upgraded infrastructure that once installed will complicate and make more expensive any future attempts to go underground.
Calls from the public for the council to take action on this proposal and protect the borough from increasingly looking like an “industrial park,” met with some support.
Council member Mantura Gallagher argued that the council had been blindsided once and cannot risk allowing that to happen again.
Council member Judith Davies-Dunhour expressed concern about this surprise.
Other comments showed that council members are very aware of the unpopularity of the project in the borough.
The discussion was repeatedly pushed away from the formal meeting of the governing body to a planned presentation by ACE open to the community and was held at the Stone Harbor Theater Oct. 10 from 9 to 11 a. m.
Repeatedly Mayor Suzanne Walters urged residents to save questions for that meeting.
Since it will not be a formal meeting of the council it was not clear who would moderate or direct the meeting and if minutes would be taken.
There was the occasional reference to the study that ACE is supposedly doing for the borough to identify the cost associated with moving the transmission lines underground and ridding the borough of the newly installed steel poles. That study, which the borough has paid for, is ongoing with no announced schedule for completion.
The specification for the study did not include going underground with the feeder system in phase II since that phase was not yet known when the study was commissioned.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.