(The Center Square) – The Pasadena Water and Power Department says it will take up to 500 years to underground its power lines, leading to outrage over the lengthy undergrounding schedule.
PWP cites limited undergrounding funding and high costs as driving the half-millenium timeline.
“Generally, it will take an estimated 100 years to complete undergrounding the remaining Category I streets,” wrote PWP. “Work on Category II streets would likely not commence until after Category I streets have been completed. According to that construction timeline, Category II streets would be completed in approximately 400 years.”
PWP is completing between 0.5 and 0.7 mile of undergrounding per year, using Underground Surtax revenue from power bills that adds about $44 per typical ratepayer per year.
PWP says it has 50 miles of Category I arterial and collector streets to underground, and 79 miles of Category II residential streets and alleyways to underground. Citing undergrounding costs of $90,000 per home and $10 to $12 million per mile, PWP says it will cost $2 billion to underground remaining power lines.
So why will it take four times as long to underground the Category II streets? That’s because phone and cable companies are required to fund their share of undergrounding Category I streets, while PWP is responsible for the whole cost of undergrounding not only power lines, but other companies’ phone and cable lines for Category II streets.
Undergrounding residential and alley streets will cost PWP more because while phone and cable companies are required to fund their share of undergrounding on Category I streets. PWP bears the whole cost of undergrounding power, phone and cable lines for Category II streets.
While PWP seems to blame limited funding from the Underground Surtax and high costs of undergrounding for the 500-year timeline, many still believe these delays are unacceptable, especially given the track record in California of aging above-ground power equipment sparking major wildfires.
“We too often have completely unserious leadership in local government,” said Alexis Rivas, a California builder who recently documented his permitting delays for a Palisades Fire rebuild on X.
“The country is 248 years old, but some municipality needs twice this amount of time to bury some power lines,” said Eric Brancard on X.
