B Y J E S LY N L E M K E
UNDERGROUND POWER LINES A QUESTION
AFTER DECEMBER ICE STORM
A
n immense old oak tree crushed Kaye Parsons’
garage roof during December’s record-breaking
ice storm in Eugene that knocked out power to
thousands.
Parsons can show you the enormous tilted
stump of the tree, which also smashed through her wood
fence on a hilly part of West 29th Avenue in the Friendly
Street neighborhood. Piles of chopped branches from
hundreds of fallen trees are stacked in many front yards of
this venerable Eugene neighborhood.
“It’s an old neighborhood so the properties are bigger
and the trees are bigger,” Parsons tells EW in a Jan. 2
interview at her house. Her older neighborhood also
features mostly overhead power lines, like many other
such neighborhoods in Eugene.
Areas like this saw the most damage and power outages
during December’s ice storm because there are so many
overhead power lines and so many aging trees planted.
The city of Eugene changed city code several decades
ago to require all new subdivisions to use underground
power lines, but powerful ice storms like the one last
month continue to cause monstrous damage because of
Eugene’s many trees and the existing overhead power lines
already in place.
So, why not just put more power lines underground?
It’s complicated, says Eugene Water and Electric Board
(EWEB) spokesperson Joe Harwood. Each year, EWEB
crews install $200,000 to $400,000 of new underground
power lines throughout Eugene, at a cost of about $150 a
foot for a smaller line and $500 a foot for a larger transmis-
sion line.
“Several hundred thousand dollars doesn’t go very far when
you are talking a minimum of $150 a foot,” Harwood says.
The city already has 552 circuit miles of underground
lines running under it, and 3.5 miles of underground
transmission lines (most of downtown uses underground
lines thanks to urban renewal funding). Conversely, there
are 160 miles of overhead transmission lines and 563 miles
of overhead lines throughout Eugene.
Parsons’ house, which lost power in the storm, sits on a
hillier section of West 29th Avenue. Her living room view
is eye-level with a towering handful of pine trees and a big
telephone line that runs through the alley.
“In this old neighborhood, it wouldn’t be feasible to
bury it,” says Stan Parsons, Kaye’s husband. Changing an
overhead line to an underground line requires working with
private landowners and digging around old sewer and water
lines, to name only a few of the obstacles, Harwood says.
Additionally, city crews must get rights-of-way passed
and an even simpler problem — big rocks under the soil
— may also block an underground line from completion,
Harwood says.
After lines are buried, another problem could arise if
homeowners accidently dig into lines before checking with
EWEB about possible buried utilities.
“We had one mile of downed overhead lines in the
Saratoga and East 53rd area a couple weeks ago,” Harwood
says, referring to the December ice storm. “If we moved all
that underground, we’d have to go under the backyards of
all these people.”
Broken limbs and shattered trunks still line miles of
Eugene streets. Crews were able to clear fallen trees from
roadways during the storm, but many trees have lain
untouched at the roadside since.
Neighborhoods hit hardest by the storm include the
South Hills, Southwest Eugene, the Ferry Street Bridge
neighborhood and College Hill.
Harwood says the storm left EWEB with about $4.2
million in damages, which it hopes can be partially
reimbursed through emergency funds from the Federal
Emergency Management Agency.
EWEB will be holding a public information meeting 5
to 7 pm Monday, Jan. 9, at the EWEB building.
“We want to explain what happened and how we
approach restoration,” Harwood says. ■
PHOTO BY MIKE SHEAHAN
• Eugene got a windfall of sorts with a nearly $19
million Comcast payment from a fee for broadband
services. Take $8.7 million of that payment and put
it towards a new City Hall and suddenly the Eugene
City Council has $27.45 million to play around with.
Woohoo! Or wait, not so fast. The citizens of Eugene
have a long history of not wanting to spend a bunch
of cash on City Hall, and the city has a long history
of making rash decisions about City Hall. More
urgently than a fancy city hall, what this area needs
is a good homeless shelter. Not a rest stop for the
night, but a shelter where people can go day or night
8
January 5, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
and something that will take the burden off of the
volunteers of the Egan Warming Center and other
service providers to the unhoused. Let’s talk. Can
we do some good planning and get an affordable
City Hall and help those in need?
• Alice Doyle of Log House Plants and the Cottage
Grove Blackberry Pie Society brings us the bumper
sticker of the week: “Bring Back Facts.” It may be
a little late for this one, but we’ll keep on trying. Get
involved at blackberrypiesociety.org.
• Mayor Lucy Vinis told us recently that she
is eager to move past “mayor-elect” and dive into
the job she won in the November election and the
May primary. Although Vinis will earn only about
$20,000 a year, she will have considerable power
to bring factions together, set the agenda, craft the
directions Eugene will go and build trust between
the people and their local government. Kitty Piercy
worked incredibly hard at this job and we are
grateful. All indications are that Mayor Vinis will do
the same.
• EW’s Corinne Boyer has received the 2017
Tom Parker Award for Excellence in Media from
Lines for Life, an Oregon-based nonprofit fighting
substance abuse and suicide, for her July 26,
2016, story “Overprescribed Opiates: The rise of
heroin addiction and the effort to end overdose
deaths.” Lines for Life, whose work appears in
the story, writes, “in particular, we appreciated
your comprehensive view of addiction, treatment
and the complicated nuances of public policy and
prevention.”