[Rumplemeyer]

I know all about underground utilities, My family has been in the Heavy Construction business for 100 years, we have worked for Con-Ed, PSE&G & JCP&L. The maintenance of underground duct systems in much cheaper and cost effective than areal systems. The underground systems are not effected nearly as much as areal systems by weather.

As for cost, the PUC determines amortization of the cost over its life time, it is not billed as a surcharge. And give it a rest on the constant rant about union wages and feather bedding. You come out and do what we do and tell me my men are overpaid, they make a good living and work damn hard for it.

[NVDave]

1. Where did I use the word “union” in my response?

2. If buried electrical transmission lines penciled out, we’d already see them. We’d see them in places where we have higher incidence of storm damage, eg, where I live in Wyoming, where there aren’t the same labor rates and right-of-way complexities increasing costs.

We don’t see underground transmission. They don’t pencil. Never have. Probably never will, and the point at which they’ll pencil moves further and further away as time goes on and the area(s) that would be the rights of way become more developed.