by Timothy Rutt
Southern California Edison, whose reputation in Altadena has been battered by Windstorm 2011 and years of frequent summer blackouts, has informed residents that it will be making improvements through the summer.
In town, the utility will be replacing poles and wires. A letter shared by a resident reads in part:
Henkels and McCoy, an electrical contractor for SCE, will be working in your neighborhood upgrading facilities the affect your electric service. Our work will take place in back yards as well as on the streets and will cause occasional outages for which you will be given advance notification. ... We will be replacing poles, increasing wire sizes and replacing transformers. Working with ... Altadena... and SCE ... considerable tree trimming will be done by an approved tree trimming contractor. Our crews will be working ... Monday July 8, 2013 and days to follow."
Outside of town, Edison will be working on poles and wires in the Angeles National Forest area adjoining Altadena, which may require stopping or redirecting hikers for several minutes at a time. An email from Edison spokesman Ben Wong to local newsgroups reads:
About two weeks ago, I informed you of some upcoming construction work on TRTP (Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project) Segment 11B in the area between the northern edge of Altadena and the southern edge of the Angeles National Forest.
The purpose of this email is to inform you that for safety reasons, signs will be posted this week ... along the recreational trails in the area where overhead line work will occur so the recreating public is aware of the potential for temporary delays (typically 15 to 20 minutes at a time, up to 60 minutes in a few instances), particularly during wire stringing.
I want to emphasize that trails will NOT be closed. Instead SCE contractors will have flagmen to direct recreational traffic during construction activities. At this point, we are anticipating that wire stringing will start in early August. These signs are going up now in order to provide recreational users plenty of advanced notice.
If you have should receive any calls or questions about this, feel free to refer the caller to the TRTP hotline (877-795-8787) or the project website at www.sce.com/trtp
According to the Edison website, the new lines are to transmit power from windfarms in the Tehachapi area to the California grid and customers from San Bernardino to Kern County.
