Wednesday, January 9, 2008

HECO, admin. and state lawmakers signed agreement regarding Waianae utility poles

HECO, the state administration and state lawmakers today announced an agreement that calls for replacing rundown power lines in Waianae and eventually putting them underground. Below is the agreement they signed:

The Undergrounding of the Farrington Highway Utility Lines

We all agree that the time has come to reach a decision on the undergrounding of at least segments of Farrington Highway. Before any application gets filed, it is our desire to go out into the community and scope out an Undergrounding project. To this end, we commit the following process:

1. We will seek community input on the areas of highest priority for undergrounding on Farrington Highway to guide Hawaiian Electric Company in that application.

2. Hawaiian Electric will explore a number of related issues including whether a movement off of Farrington Highway (either Mauka or Makai) is possible; whether the lines need to be 46 kV or whether they can be 12 kV; what the expected costs of service hookups will be along the coast; what costs are added by transitioning back and forth from undergrounding to overhead versus full Undergrounding; and what traffic disruptions are contemplated.

3. Hawaiian Electric at the public meeting(s) will provide a brief background n the following subjects:

(a) The advantages and disadvantages of undergrounding;
(b) The approximate cost of undergrounding;
(c) The history of another major highway undergrounding project, the Kalanianaole Highway project; and
(d) Any other information from the review under No. 2 above.

4. We would envision a series of public meetings and meetings with community leaders over the next sixty to ninety days.

5. The legislature and the Administration will explore the range of funding available to pay for at least a fair share of the project.

6. Hawaiian Electric Company commits that it will file an application to underground at least portions of Farrington Highway after receiving community input.

7. Hawaiian Electric will first truss and then install steel poles in the area where poles have gone down twice. Work on both is to be completed by October 1, 2008.

8. Other pole users: Hawaiian Telcom, Oceanic, Pacific Lightnet and others will be encouraged to participate in these discussions, especially given the consequences to them of a decision to underground.


Signed by Colleen Hanabusa, State Senate; Barry Fukunaga, Office of the Governor; T. Michael May, Hawaiian Electric Co., Inc.; Calvin K.Y. Say, State House of Representatives

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey Calvin,how about underground lines in Palolo?