City, PenLight in talks to move power lines

Undergrounding on Harborview Drive motivated by aesthetics

Paige Richmond

of the Gateway

Members of the Gig Harbor City Council and the Peninsula Light Co. Board of Directors will meet later this month to discuss making a major change to the city’s downtown corridor: Undergrounding the power lines that run along Harborview Drive.

The request came from the city in anticipation of major infrastructure improvement projects along Judson Street and Harborview Drive next year. Those projects will involve opening up the two streets to update sewer lines and other utilities.

It would make the most sense, City Council member Tim Payne said, to underground those power lines when the improvement projects occur.

“If we’re going to open up Harborview, it’s a phenomenal opportunity to make this investment,” Payne said.

Undergrounding any power lines along Harborview Drive would mostly be an aesthetic issue, since the lines currently obscure homeowners’ views of the harbor.

Most of PenLight’s undergrounding projects, however, are done based on reliability issues, said PenLight spokesman Jonathan White. The lines along Harborview Drive are the third most reliable feeder lines in the member-owned co-operative — they even stayed active during the windstorm in 1996 and the ice storm in 2006.

“As far as reliability goes, (Harborview) is not a top priority,” White said.

PenLight has been cooperative with the city in the past when it comes to undergrounding power lines during large street improvement projects. During the extensive improvements to Olympic Drive and 56th Street, for example, the co-op spent $800,000 to move and underground the transmission line serving the Fox Island, Artondale and Cromwell areas, as well as the distribution line leading from the Inn at Gig Harbor along 38th Street.

Undergrounding the Harborview power lines may not offer many advantages, White said, especially since that undergrounding project could be more expensive than the one on Olympic Drive and 56th Street.

“We can’t expect people from Fox Island, Key Center and Longbranch to provide the major reliability funding to Gig Harbor when we have 110 square miles to take care of,” White said, referring to the area PenLight serves.

The likelihood is that PenLight and the City of Gig Harbor will work out a way to jointly fund the Harborview undergrounding project, in order to avoid passing any cost onto PenLight members or Gig Harbor residents. The co-op and city will also have to determine logistics, such as service interruptions, before making any decisions.

“Ultimately, what we will need to do is go to back to the citizens — with public forums or public comment — and find out what they want it to be,” Payne said.

Until then, the issue is up for debate. Jafar Taghavi, PenLight CEO, briefly addressed the issue of undergrounding at the Gig Harbor Peninsula Area Chamber of Commerce-sponsored Public Affairs Forum at Cottesmore of Life Care last Thursday. He said PenLight currently has 350 miles of overheard power lines and 550 miles of underground lines in its service area. The co-op has allotted $4 million a year to improve reliability for its members. Taghavi said undergrounding is one way to increase the reliability of power service, but the co-op has other options to explore, as well.

“Undergrounding is good to do,” he said. “But it’s not the solution.”