City Light contractors have been doing inspections around the Puget Sound area since a dog was killed when it stepped on an energized groundcover plate in Queen Anne in November.

The latest discoveries bring the total number of streetlights found with contact voltage to 25.

Crews immediately cut off power and started repairs. There were no injuries.

The three local hotspots are:

• 12841 Shorewood Dr SW, Burien, 31 volts, deteriorated wiring was found, power was cut off, repairs pending
• 12854 Shorewood Dr SW, Burien, 31 volts, deteriorated wiring was repaired
• 12882 Shorecrest Dr SW, Burien, 50 volts, a faulty lamp fixture was discovered, power was cut off, repairs pending

Here’s a map showing the Burien hotspots:

View City Light Streetlights with Voltage in a larger map
The inspections are part of City Light’s ongoing safety testing and repair efforts on all its 30,000 metal streetlight poles and nearby metal facilities.

After a dog was killed when it stepped on an electrified groundcover plate in Queen Anne, City Light initiated testing of all of its metal streetlight poles and related metal equipment.

Two contractors – Davey Resources Group and Power Survey Co. – are conducting the testing.

The contractors have tested about 12,500 pieces of equipment or about 42 percent of the total. Areas where testing has been completed include Seattle Center, Downtown, SODO, Capitol Hill, First Hill, West Seattle, Madrona and Tukwila.

The industry average for contact voltage potential with a metal streetlight pole is 0.3 percent. City Light’s findings are 0.2 percent.

Blair Sorrel, Founder of StreetZaps.com, said:

“Contact voltage is a chronic hidden hazard that can readily victimize an unsuspecting dog, walker, or both. No dog lover could possibly observe a more horrifying scene than witnessing his beloved pet instantaneously maimed or tragically electrocuted. When you exercise your pooch, please exercise greater prudence. Common outdoor electrical and metal fixtures may shock or even kill your vulnerable dog. And depending upon the current, the walker will be bitten and like poor Aric Roman, suffer permanently. But you can, indeed, self-protect.

Just start to adopt this simple strategy — EYEBALL THE BLOCK, AND AVOID A SHOCK. Take a few seconds and make your trajectory toward generally safer, free standing, non-conductive surfaces, ie., plastic, wood, cardboard. Intuit your dog’s cues and if it’s resistant, change directions. Work site perimeters may be live so try to elude them. If necessary, switch sides of the street or your hands when leading to skirt hazards. If you traverse the same route, you may memorize locations of potential dangers. Carry your pooch when in doubt. Consider indoor restroom products like PottyPark when external conditions are chancy or RopeNGo’s hardware-free leash and harness. And don’t rely on dog booties as a palliative as they will actually put your pet at even greater risk since the dog can’t tell you they’re leaking! To learn to more, please see StreetZaps. A safer walk is yours year round if you are willing to open to your eyes and mind to it.”

Some of the other locations where the latest contact voltage was discovered include:

WHITE CENTER:

• 1721 SW Roxbury Street, 111 volts, a faulty ballast assembly was replaced.

WEST SEATTLE/ARBOR HEIGHTS:

• SW Avalon Way and 35th Avenue SW, 104 volts, bad wiring was repaired.
• SW Holly Street and 31st Avenue SW, 107 volts, a faulty lamp head was replaced.
• 4115 SW Arroyo Drive, 84 volts, a faulty ballast assembly was replaced.
• SW Arroyo Drive and 39th Avenue SW, 98 volts, power was disconnected, repairs pending.
• Near 56^th Avenue SW and SW Bradford Street with 103 volts. A crew repaired a connector that was touching the pole and energizing it.
• Near Fauntleroy Way SW and SW Edmunds Street with 97 volts. Power was cut off and crews are determining the cause to begin work on a repair.
• A streetlight cover near Marine View Drive SW and 42^nd Avenue SW with 84 volts. Power was cut off and crews are determining the cause to begin work on a repair.

SEATTLE:

• 4427 Airport Way S, 32 volts, a faulty lamp fixture was replaced.
• E James and 32nd Avenue, 98 volts, bad wiring was replaced.
• E Spruce and 32nd Avenue, 35 volts, a bad connection was found and all connections were replaced.
• E Yesler Way and 28th Avenue, 41 volts, a bad wiring connection was found, power was disconnected, repairs pending.
• 12th Avenue S and S Jackson Street, 100 volts, frayed wiring was repaired.
• A streetlight pole near 12^th Avenue S and S Jackson Street with 100 volts. A crew found frayed wiring that was energizing the pole’s ground wire. Temporary repairs were made to ensure safe operations until a permanent fix can be scheduled.

Friend of the blog and Advertiser Economy Wiring / YB Tubless sends along to our hearty Readers a great idea for a holiday gift to yourself and family.

“Federal tax credits for installing certain energy saving products run out a few days after winter sets in,” says Economy’s Operation Manager Shawn Becker.

These credits (savings) can be “winter wonderlandingly hefty so come in or call us soon,” Shawn says. “Remember, in order for people to take advantage of these tax credits, they must purchase by December 31, 2010.”

These credits apply to the purchase of certain gas heaters, heat pumps and air conditioners.

Get ready for a cold winter by having your gas heating devices cleaned and serviced before the mercury drops.

Also, Shawn advises that Puget Sound Energy is offering a $200 rebate for gas fireplaces and inserts installed before New Year’s Day.

Stop in and say Hi!

Economy Wiring & YB Tubless
633 SW 148th Street
Burien, WA
Phone (206) 244-7542

email:  operations@economywiring.net

web: www.economywiring.com

by Ralph Nichols

Seattle City Light customers in Burien have been billed for the undergrounding of electrical lines along 1st Ave. S. for some time now.

And they’ve been asking when – or if – they’ll see utility lines, including those of Qwest and Comcast, disappear from the poles that still line the street.

Finally, more than two years after phase one of the First Avenue South Improvement Project was scheduled to be completed, the undergrounding of these utility lines is about to get underway.

Burien Public Works Director Larry Blanchard told The B-Town Blog that the last stage of the delay-plagued project, is about to go to bid.

Bids for what he calls “phase one, part two” of the project should be advertised later this month and opened in August.

Blanchard expects the process of taking overhead wiring off power poles and placing it in underground conduits between about S/SW 156th and S/SW 146th streets will be completed by mid-March 2011.

“Because the nature of this work is not subject to normal weather conditions, we should be able to continue throughout winter,” he added.

The city’s project manager for the final part of phase one is Doug LaMothe, who was not involved with any of the work done earlier.

While phase one has not been “on time” for two years, the $26.2 million project is still “on budget,” Blanchard said.

Work on phase one of the First Avenue South Improvement Project, from S/SW 162nd St. to 146th, got under way in late summer 2006, with completion scheduled for spring 2008.

Frank Coluccio was the general contractor. Gary Long was then Burien’s city manager and Stephen Clarke the city public works director.

Neither Long nor Clarke is still with the city. Coluccio was removed from the project in 2009 for not meeting the construction schedule.

Coluccio responded with a lawsuit against the city, alleging that delays resulted from underground lines that weren’t mapped by the city and failure by the city to complete preparatory work on time.

That case is currently in court.

While extreme winter weather in late 2006 and 2007 did slow work for a few weeks, final paving didn’t begin until late summer 2008 – six months after the original target for completion.

By the time Coluccio was removed, street improvements had been completed, except for traffic signals and traffic lights. But the contractor had done no undergrounding – even though conduits and vaults for this were in place.

Since then, some undergrounding has been done between S/SW 162nd and S/SW 156th streets where businesses along 1st Ave. S. have brought their utility lines under ground and connections have been made.

“We’re working closely with Seattle City Light to make the conversion to underground,” Blanchard said. “Quest and Comcast already have done some undergrounding with the work that SCL did on the south end.”

About $1.5 million of the original funding for this project phase remains. He said that should cover the remaining work – all undergrounding, street lighting, traffic signals, and traffic signal coordination.

by Ralph Nichols

A proposed 8.8 percent rate increase by Seattle City Light, which would begin in January, “will affect most of our residents,” Burien City Manager Mike Martin said last week.

City Light provides electrical service to almost all of Burien and all of the North Highline area. The Seattle City Council will vote on whether to accept or amend the rate increase request later this month.

Included in City Light’s rate analysis supporting the proposed increase are additional increases of 5.4 percent in 2011 and 6.6 percent in 2012.

Because City Light is a publicly owned utility, it is not regulated by the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission. Oversight comes instead from the Seattle City Council.

Martin said Burien has asked City Light for clarification about the need for a rate hike at this time, “since it will affect so many of our residents,” but has not yet received a reply.

Outgoing Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels called for the increase when he submitted in September his proposed 2010 budget.

In a report to the Burien City Council, Martin noted that reasons given for a higher power rate when Nickels announced his budget proposal were the poor economy, a sharp decline in sales of surplus power and a larger-than-proposed rate decrease in 2007.

Surplus power sales have been driven down by low natural-gas prices, according to Seattle budget director Dwight Dively. While Seattle’s 2009 budget anticipated surplus power sales of $140 million, only about half that amount has been sold – leaving City Light with a $70 million shortfall.

Martin added that City Light also says the increase is needed to maintain its net operating income reserve, although “there is no legal reserve requirement” for that reserve as structured by the utility.

Citing City Light’s reference to cash flow, Martin replied, “The economy is also hurting our residents’ cash flow.”

In a statement to The B-Town Blog, he said, “At this time, it’s still not entirely clear what’s going on.” Burien staff will seek more information from City Light within the next couple of weeks.

Numerous Burien-area residents were in the dark Sunday night, and it wasn’t just because the sun went down – Seattle City Light reports that power was lost last night around 8pm to nearly 3,900 homes.

According to Mike Eagan of Seattle City Light, there were two outages overnight, both caused by falling tree branches laden with heavy snow:

1. Boundaries – 1/4/2009 8:03:00 PM:

• North – S Barton St;
• South – SW 152nd St;
• West – Puget Sound;
• East – 10th Ave S;
• Approximate customers affected: 3899
• Cause: UNKNOWN It was a Tree
• Estimated power restoration time for the above outage: January 5, 2009 at 6 a.m. 100% power restored at 1:28am 1/5/09

2. Boundaries – 1/4/09 early am (time unknown):

• North – S. 96th
• South – SW 175th
• West – 24th SW
• East- 33rd SW
• Cause: Tree
• 95% power restored as of 9:25am 1/5/09