Report from Gulf Power open house

If you’re like me and weren’t able to make it over to Gulf Power HQ on Saturday to check out their “open house”, don’t despair, as Pensacola Progressive‘s good friend Joe has a field report for us:

Most of the talking points I heard stemmed from [their prepared] literature. They didn’t like to admit that the main reason they picked this route was because it’s the shortest and cheapest (note that the shorter distance is touted as “improving reliability”). When pressed on the price, they said something along the lines of, “We have to be fair to all of our 400,000 customers, and if our customers in Fort Walton Beach heard that we’re not expanding in the most cost-efficient way possible, they would be very upset at having to pay for that.”

LOL.

There were lots of North Hill folks who were very upset with Gulf Power for the way they notified neighborhood residents of their plan. Apparently all they got was a little note in the mail saying, “We are upgrading our lines in your neighborhood and hope you will not be affected,” or something to that effect. The Gulf Power reps said they certainly didn’t mean to be misleading; that all their plans were announced openly and approved at a City Council meeting (this made me think of the Hitchhikers Guide joke about “Beware of the leopard”); and that if anything they were “guilty of being too smart” — i.e. they know what’s best, but don’t know how to convey all the technical details in simple terms.

The question came up about why the poles are so high. I asked if it was due to health concerns about the fields generated by the lines, and they said no: the only regulations they have about minimum pole height comes from the Florida Public Service Commission, and it’s something like 40 feet for this kind of line. So why are the poles more than twice that? Because they can space them further apart and let the lines sag. If they used 40-foot poles, they would need more of them, and also there would be more tree trimming involved.

Here’s another knee-slapper. Gulf Power’s statement on the possible health hazard: “Many statistical studies have been done and some have indicated there may be a link between leukemia and living near high-voltage power lines. However, the mainstream scientific community has not found that exposure to electric and magnetic fields from power lines causes or contributes to any disease. This is reflected in the findings of more than 140 scientific reviews sponsored by state and federal government agencies and international public health organizations.”

I asked about alternate routes. Looking at a map, it would make sense to move the route west to E Street, which is where the current line is, but they said it would be disruptive to Baptist Hospital. They could take the line east along Cervantes and then north along the CSX/I-110 corridor, but they said there’s an issue with how close the buildings on Cervantes and Palafox are to the street; to get enough clearance around the poles, they would need to criss-cross the road at several points. Also there’s a problem with the elevation drop-off along Cervantes. That still seems like the most viable option to me, as it really doesn’t add any real length to the route, and it wouldn’t matter how tall the poles were along I-110.

According to the PNJ, “The I-110 corridor involves CSX Railroad right-of-way. To locate there, Gulf Power would have to pay CSX a monthly fee, and it would take a long time to get a permit. In terms of crossing the tracks, lines would have to be raised very high on behemoth structures to meet the railroad’s standards.”

Then I asked about the Devilliers substation itself. Would it be possible to move that east, near the railroad, and just run the line north from there? The first guy I spoke to acted like it might work, but when I mentioned it a second time, one of the reps laughed out loud. They said it was a mistake to put the substation there in the first place, and if they were designing the system from scratch today it would be someplace different, but it’s far too expensive to move a substation and we just have to work with what we’ve got. “Okay,” I said, “so clearly it was a mistake to put this substation within a core residential neighborhood — but since that’s where it is, don’t you guys have a responsibility to honor the historical character of the surrounding neighborhoods, even if that means being more expensive?” They said that’s why they halted the project to get more input and look at other options.

Everyone was very nice and informative, but it felt like a dog and pony show. As they say in the literature, they picked this route after a lot of consideration, and I don’t see them offering to change it unless they have to. The open house was just for them to be able to say, “Look, we considered it, we met with all you people, but this is still what we’re doing.”