SULLIVAN’S ISLAND, S.C. (WCBD) – The Town of Sullivan’s Island and Dominion Energy are looking into the feasibility of transitioning to underground power lines. “I think it’s a great plan because personally, I think aesthetically it would look a little bit better. And another thing I was thinking about is with hurricanes and stuff that […]
SULLIVAN’S ISLAND, S.C. (WCBD) – The Town of Sullivan’s Island and Dominion Energy are looking into the feasibility of transitioning to underground power lines.
“I think it’s a great plan because personally, I think aesthetically it would look a little bit better. And another thing I was thinking about is with hurricanes and stuff that we’re prone to like on the beach, I think it’s a little bit more safe,” said Sullivan’s Island resident, Sara Keller.
The plan came back to town leaders on Thursday morning during the Public Facilities Committee meeting. Town Administrator Joe Henderson gave an update on where they are in the process, saying officials are working on a Request for Proposal (RFP) to procure an engineer.
According to what was said in the meeting, the engineering firm would work on the design and survey.
“As you’ve been driving around you can see, I mean, we have a beautiful island, the trees are a special part of our island. And so, every time that Dominion comes through here and cuts our trees in order to accommodate reliable power service, you hear residents who are extremely upset about the impact of that to our island and so in order for us to be able to determine how we deal with this issue long term, one of the things we have to do is to figure out if its feasible that we can bury our power lines,” said Karen Byko, the President of Sullivan’s Island For All.
Byko is hopeful the underground power lines will help to reduce tree cutting performed by Dominion.
“If we long term would be able to bury the power lines, we’d be able to save future Palmettos and also our Live Oaks that we so depend upon for our stormwater management and just the aesthetic beauty of our islands,” Byko told News 2.
The committee voted in favor of recommending the RFP consist of a comprehensive approach meaning the study would be focused on the island as a whole. The decision will come before full council before moving forward.
“Ideally, of course, we’d like to have all of our power lines underground, but there may be certain areas that are more vulnerable and sensitive to the cutting by Dominion that would make sense for those areas to go first, and I think that would be a perfectly acceptable solution to this,” Byko added.
Dominion Energy’s Communication Strategic Advisor, Paul Fischer, told News 2 one of the biggest challenges in the process is securing rights from property owners and stakeholders, but they’re “always willing to consider underground lines if the construction is technically feasible, system reliability is not compromised and there is a mechanism in place to cover the cost.”
He said Dominion is in the process of creating an underground master plan with the town.