PORT ANGELES — “Back of the envelope” calculations show that putting all 850 miles of Clallam County Public Utility District’s power lines underground could cost as much as 10 times the district’s annual budget.
When the commissioners opened bids last week on three such projects, the average cost was about $275,000 per mile — three times the cost of overhead lines.
PUD Commissioner Will Purser said that $275,000 cost was just for labor. Adding materials and equipment increases that figure to as much as $500,000 per mile, he said, qualifying that figure as a “back of the envelope” calculation.
So putting all 850 miles of Clallam PUD’s distribution lines underground at $500,000 per mile would cost $425 million — or about 10 times the district’s annual budget, not including the transmission lines, Purser said.
That, he added, would put out of reach any widespread utility line burial project, as suggested by PUD customers at a commissioners meeting last week and in letters to the Peninsula Daily News.
Clallam PUD serves about 28,500 electricity customers throughout unincorporated Clallam County, plus those in the cities of Sequim and Forks.
The city of Port Angeles has its own electric utility.
Series of outages
Widespread power outages Nov. 13-17 caused by windstorms throughout the county were followed by another series of outages lasting up to five days caused by a Nov. 26-27 snowstorm.
As many as 12,000 customers lost power throughout the county during the storms.
The prolonged outages led to the calls for putting power lines underground to protect them from storms.
Purser said Clallam PUD should get out information regarding local utility districts so that residents could help share utility line costs in high-risk areas.
PUD General Manager Doug Nass said that approach could be examined where overhead lines are already due to be replaced.
