Posted on 10/22/2004 7:54:53 AM PDT by SmithL
Seven people who usually devote their public service hours to the stolid realities of electricity were drawn Thursday morning into a passionate exploration of beauty, poverty and class.
Should one neighborhood, peopled with articulate and well-off homeowners, have a proposed power line rerouted when equally unsightly lines brand other neighborhoods?
The answer, for four of the seven directors of Sacramento Municipal Utility District, was "yes, but ... ."
They argued the debate was not really about poverty at all, only about using good judgment and being responsive to the community.
The suggestion that affluence had anything to do with Thursday's 4-3 vote to reroute a high-voltage line is "ridiculous," SMUD director Susan Patterson said after the meeting.
It is inappropriate, several directors said, to compare altering the route of a still-unbuilt line to failed bids to move existing, perfectly serviceable overhead lines underground.
The dissenters wouldn't hear it.
"I don't believe that we moved any power poles for ... blind people and people in wheelchairs" facing tough access to a Kmart store, said director Linda Davis.
"I've heard it argued that 60 feet, 90 feet, 120 feet are too close to new and expensive homes" because "these homeowners might get a glimpse of an ugly wire," said director Larry Carr.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Anyone else start snoring right about here?
Why don't they just bury the power lines?
I attended some EPA Air Quality seminars during the Clinton years, where EPA had grant money available for minority groups and the poor to hire environmental lawyers and experts to participate on their behalf on various projects in the name of social justice.
Kind of interesting article. And a nice diversion from the election politics. Thanks.
Sorry I knew I forgot somebody
We have had some working day outages due to some minor re routeing of power lines in our area.
Yesterday one of the Watermelon Enviral Nattering Nannies who lives up the hill walked down the hill during the outage. I was getting our mail, when she and her husband stopped by to complain.
I told her that I was surprised that a charter member in the Sierra Club and the leader of no new roads and growth still used electricity. Her husband moaned and grinned, and she went off in her usual huff after one of my remarks.
Too expensive...Plus the corona effect from transmission lines can extend outward a fair ways with higher voltages...
Hmmm.. interesting. How much can they extend safely? What kind of voltage is needed to NOT have that effect?
LOL, you nailed them good!
Thanks for the ping.
Just the Nattering Granny Enviral Watermelon whackoo got nailed.
I feel sorry for her husband. For close to 30 years, I have watched him helplessly roll his eyes when she mutters one of her mantras. He grins when she isn't looking when I take her mantras and turn them against her.
ZERO...
There is a magnetic field formed around any conductor that has electrons flowing through it. Underground transmission cable are very expensive and have extensive shielding to reduce corona effect. They also require more testing and maintenance. Some lines require active cooling and have oil pumped through them, another concern that is overrated by enviroMENTALists...
It is just cheaper and easier to hang the wire between poles, with the wires in the outside air no active cooling is required.
MD
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