Our View: Time To Go Underground

It’s time for our periodic polemic urging that utility wires be buried. But this time, with a historic blizzard that cut power to many residents for several days just two weeks in the rearview mirror, there may be some momentum in favor of undergrounding.

 Recently, Paul Niedzwiecki, CEO of the Cape Cod Regional Chamber of Commerce, endorsed a regional effort to strengthen and improve the region’s power grid, and a big part of that is placing wires underground. As we have noted in the past, Niedzwiecki points out that our region has some of the highest electricity rates in the country, and yet our power system is fragile because it’s carried high above the ground on wooden poles that are susceptible to damage from storms. 

 As always, utility company officials throw around big numbers when asked about putting the wires underground as well as claims that buried wires are more difficult to repair. When Chatham investigated underground utilities 40 years ago, utility officials said it would cost $1 million per mile. Now the cost is $2 to $6 million, as detailed in this week’s front-page story. We’ve always thought those figures were wildly inflated as a way to discourage movement toward underground utilities. What they don’t take into account is savings due to less storm damage (we haven’t seen a figure for damage from last month’s blizzard, but just the repairs will likely be in the tens of millions of dollars; lost productivity and business could push it into the hundreds of millions. And that’s just one storm at a time when climate change is causing more frequent and severe weather). 

 We understand that even if utilities are placed underground in one location, the grid is still vulnerable because wires won’t be buried everywhere. That’s why a comprehensive plan needs to be developed for undergrounding utilities over multiple decades, from one end of Cape Cod to the other. No one town can tackle this; it must be a regional effort. The lack of a regional sewer plan likely contributed to higher wastewater costs for individual towns, and also missed the opportunity to place wires underground when infrastructure was torn up to install sewer pipes. 

 If Barnstable County officials are unwilling to lead such an effort, residents and officials should turn to state government and push for a state-wide underground utility program. It’s an issue of safety, security and, it could be argued, life and death should there be more prolonged winter power outages. And there’s the economic issue, as noted above; surely those losses, should they occur more frequently, would justify using taxpayer money to bury wires.

 Aside from the financial argument, utilities say that it's harder to repair buried wires and they are more susceptible to damage from flooding, freezing and other factors. But many towns, Chatham included, require that utilities be buried in all new subdivisions. If that’s OK, why is more widespread undergrounding problematic? Those arguments were also used decades ago, and we can’t believe that technology hasn’t improved enough to put them to rest.

 We call on our elected officials — local, county and state — to work together with utility companies to develop a plan to place wires underground throughout the commonwealth. In the very long term, it will save money and create a more stable and reliable grid, which benefits everyone.