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Watertown threatens Eversource: Start removing those stupid double poles or else
By adamg on Fri, 11/27/2020 - 12:08pm
Watertown News reports the Town Council is fed up with all those double poles - where a utility puts up a new pole then doesn't take down the old one next to it - and has told Eversource the company can forget about getting permits for any other work in town until it does something about them.
A Boston double pole that was finally taken down after several years.
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Comments
Magoo sez
This is double trubble. Reminds Magoo of the doublemint twins. Magoo.
This makes MBTA look good in
This makes MBTA look good in comparison. Imagine they did this with tracks.
As a network guy dealing with
As a network guy dealing with utility poles in the past, this sort of thing is a bureaucratic morass. The poles are owned by one company, the services are all leased from the pole owner. To do any work you need to get the cable companies, the power companies, the phone companies, the other services running on a pole (fiber, etc). They have to all be consulted, advised, notified, informed, detailed, whatever is required by this mess of contracts, before you can do any work. Not to mention the hundreds or thousands of customers that absolutely refuse to be without power/cable/phone services/internet/etc for the time it takes to move the wires.
It's a huge mess.
you are 100% correct.
,
It may be a mess, but it's
It may be a mess, but it's not a surprise and Eversource pays lots of employees big bucks specifically to manage all the work you outlined above. It's their job.
Often beyond Eversource's control
Eversource can tell the other tenants of a pole to start planning to move their cables or fiber to the new pole, but said tenants may not be in any hurry.
I'm not in this industry, but
I'm not in this industry, but I have to assume all of this is in the contracts that allow these tenants to use the pole. All contracts I've ever seen that include an advance notice clause on one party also include timelines for taking action on the other party, as well as dispute resolution processes. If Eversource doesn't put that in their contracts... they probably should.
To speculate: if Eversource notifies tenants of a pole that they'll need to move to a replacement pole and not every tenant takes the requisite actions, Eversource can probably go to arbitration and eventually force the tenant to either comply or lose access to the pole. Cases like that can take a while to resolve, but not a decade unless neither party is really interested in resolution. Watertown is telling Eversource to get more serious about resolving these cases, if that is indeed the reason there are so many long-lived double poles. Up to now there's been very little cost for inaction.
Eversource
Has to be one of the worse companies when it comes to public opinion. They do whatever they want snd they do not card what others think of them. Double poles, old transformers, ancient power lines etc.
They do not believe in maintenance on the infrastructure.
When it was National Grid..
.. it was no better. Employee morale must be abysmal.
When it was National Grid..
.. it was no better. Employee morale must be abysmal.
When it was National Grid..
.. it was no better. Employee morale must be abysmal.
One more time!
One more time!
Ok
When it was National Grid..
By Lee on Fri, 11/27/2020 - 3:53pm.
.. it was no better. Employee morale must be abysmal
Eversource was never National Grid
These are two separate utility companies.
Maybe they're confusing it with NStar?
I was an NStar customer before the seeming re-brand. I didn't change living situations when the switch happened, but one day I got notification saying they had a new name.
Double post for double polls
Double post for double polls
Cambridgeport and Riverside
Cambridgeport and Riverside are overrun with double poles as well, many of which have been there for years. When we finally got the one in front of our house fixed (it was literally about to fall over), we consulted with the neighbors and realized it had been doubled for at least twelve years.
all overhead utilities
should be underground.
i realize that will cost money. but its worth it in the long run when new england weather causes overhead wires to snap.
i grew up in a town where all wired utilities had to be underground. now i live in a town where they are all above ground. i lose power at least once a month. growing up i only lost it if a transformer blew, so very infrequently - maybe once every 5 years.
It's more than the expense
It's the logistics of routing new underground utilities around all the existing underground utilities while minimizing service disruptions to users while the work is underway.
That is one of the reasons that constructing the depressed Central Artery a.k.a. the O'Neill Tunnel through Downtown Boston was so complicated - and expensive.
fair
while that is a fair consideration for larger cities, its less of a problem for suburbia.
Now all Watertown needs to do
Now all Watertown needs to do, is follow through.
I hate double poles as much
I hate double poles as much as any angry Internet commenter.
But Eversource doesn’t get permits just for its own amusement. They do it for projects needed by their customers — us. What happens when a property owner needs a new or upgraded electrical service and they get caught by this ultimatum?