$1 million dedicated to fix decaying, broken power poles in Columbia
Columbia Utilities will get another $1 million to fix power poles in the most disrepair.
The Columbia City Council approved the work Monday night as part of the department’s ongoing maintenance of the city’s wooden power poles. The 14,000 poles hold up the city’s distribution system.
Columbia Utilities partnered with Lee Inspection and Consulting Services to check out the state of the poles. The inspection found 1,200 poles that needed to be fixed within five to seven years. The department, however, requested $1 million to replace “166 of the most critical poles” during the next several months.
Lee Inspection’s report details the pole number in disrepair and the GPS location of each of them. Many suffer from heart rot, shell rot or internal decaying. The report credits woodpecker damages to seventeen of the poles.
The replacement project this year amounts to nearly $6,000 per pole. Utility director Tad Johnsen said labor amounts for much of the cost of pole replacement, extended by electric poles with several different power lines on it.
“The pole itself isn’t six thousand dollars, its the manpower needed to get it up,” Johnsen said. “Some poles are more expensive than others, if you know what I mean. If we’ve got a lot of infrastructure on the pole, it can be a day, day and a half job for at least a line crew to change out a pole.”
The money will come from the electric department’s retained earnings fund. City council member Ian Thomas said the city could possibly avoid future spending on pole repair with further investment and expansion of solar energy.
