Officials with Dominion Energy have presented to Sullivan’s Island Town Council a plan to bury power lines to better protect the town’s infrastructure — and its trees.
The move on May 21 comes after a month of public outcry about Dominion’s tree-trimming cycle, which carved tunnels through grand oaks across the Lowcountry and highlighted more than 500 native palmettos for removal on Sullivan’s Island alone.
“Dominion Energy was very kind to address the council to speak about the overhead to underground conversion, given the calls received about the tree trimming/palmetto removal and pending hurricane season,” Town Administrator Andy Benke said in a May 22 email to the Charleston City Paper.
Mayor Patrick O’Neil agreed, adding palmettos were of particular concern on Sullivan’s Island due to their historical and cultural significance to locals. The South Carolina state flag bears a palmetto, a reference to an historic patriot victory over the British in 1776.
“A lot of our residents are understandably up in arms about all the cutting, especially the palmettos,” he told the City Paper on May 24.
Dominion officials last week reportedly completed a walk-around of the town to determine if any of the palmettos could be taken off the removal list, but identified very few that they were willing to keep, O’Neil said. The company is expected to move forward with the removal of hundreds of palmettos soon.
“The cutting standards they follow may make sense for other trees, like oaks, which grow up and over powerlines, but a palmetto grows up, period,” O’Neil said. “They don’t grow over except in unusual circumstances. They don’t sway in storms. They aren’t remotely brittle. Yet they’re trimming these trees according to the same standard. That’s an issue.”
Sullivan’s Island resident Karen Byko said she was heartbroken by the plan to remove hundreds of palmettos.
“The palmetto played a significant role in our state history, that’s why it sits on our state flag,” she said. “History is a huge part of the fabric of our community. It’s just extra heartbreak on top of the heartbreak.”
Ball in the town’s court
Dominion spokesman Paul Fischer said it’s now up to town leaders to define the scope of the project if they want any work done in the first place.
“There’s 16 miles of overhead line on Sullivan’s Island,” he said. “What the town needs to decide is if they’re looking to [bury] these lines for the entire island or are they looking to do this in sections. Those things needed to be decided before they contract with us for a preliminary design.”
O’Neil said the first stage of that process would likely involve a lengthy and expensive engineering study.
“We first need to decide if we want to spend the considerable amount of money to get the engineering data to make some educated decisions on whether and how much to do,” he said. “We’ll be talking about that in the future, probably in the next few months, if we want to commission that engineering study.”
While Fischer said it’s hard to get an accurate cost estimate without that engineering study, the presentation to town council included a rough, ballpark projection of $60 million to bury all 16 miles of power lines, the equivalent of $3.75 million per mile. In an earlier story, the City Paper reported ranges of $11,000 to $6,100,000 per mile to bury lines in various projects across the U.S.
O’Neil said the important thing to remember is that the town doesn’t have to do the whole island, and certainly not all at once.
“We need to be thoughtful and strategic about it,” he said. “Running power underground is not a magic cure. It’s very expensive — five to 10 times the cost of overhead power. You don’t just dig a trench and lay wire in it.”
Is it worth it?
Underground cables won’t make Sullivan’s Island’s infrastructure impervious to storms, O’Neil said, and “frankly, we have a bigger threat coming from sea-level rise and high tides.” And according to Fischer, recovery times for power outages when lines are buried are actually longer. But, O’Neil said, burying power lines to protect the town’s trees may be worth it.
“We need to attend to those concerns when we can,” he said,” so that might mean spending a good bit of money on engineering studies. Five years goes by in a hurry. Even if we decide to start doing this work, by the time we get the engineering study and the permitting and all the easements done, they may be back cutting again.”
Byko said the cost of the project does not outweigh the benefits.
“You can look at a number and say, ‘Wow, that’s a huge number. How can we afford to do this?’” she said. “But if you look at other communities who have done this to make themselves more safe and more resilient … you’d say, ‘How can we afford not to do this?’”
Fischer said the biggest benefits to underground power lines include reducing damage during wind events and aesthetic improvements. This year’s hurricane season is shaping up to be extremely active, according to a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“Moving forward, [town council] will continue to discuss the process of a conversion,” Benke said. “I would be very surprised if this would be a quick answer.”
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