It’s incredibly expensive

Rocks. Large Rocks. Bedrock. Rocks.

You clearly have never tried to dig a hole in Vermont.

Maybe because it's easier and cheaper to go over mountains and water.

Stowe just buried all its power lines on Main Street. It was a huge 2 year project and was super expensive. Is it really nice now? Yeah. Is it realistic to expect every line in vt to be buried? Absolutely not and even stowe still has a majority of its lines not downtown on towers.

Generally 10 times more expensive to bury. Typically $75-100/ft for poles vs $750-1000/ft to bury for main lines.

GMP has already set aside $10 mil for Emerald Ash Borer remediation. Cutting ash trees from right of ways.

Money

Did you mean “Why doesn’t Vermont Barre its power lines?”

By that logic why doesn't California bury its transmission lines?

Its incredibly incredibly incredibly expensive and would be a massive undertaking.

OP you’re the one that brought up climate change, bearing powerlines wouldn’t just be expensive but it would generate a great deal of pollution. All that digging is done by gas and diesel powered vehicles. Plus I looked it up, the old above ground lines cannot be repurposed for underground usage since they give off heat so you’re talking about scrapping all the powerlines in the state. Yes it would get recycled but recycling isn’t free, removing, transporting and recycling the lines burns fossil fuels. So your plan to future proof for climate change worsens climate change.

The recent statewide power outages we’re wild and yes most of it could’ve been avoided with buried power lines. But I kept track of the outages and 99% of the state had its power restored within three days, my house took two. And talking to people have been here longer than me this doesn’t seem like a common problem where half of the houses in the state lose power. This state doesn’t have a lot of money and burying powerlines cost several times more than above ground powerlines so that expense is going to get passed on to the average citizen to solve for an in frequent and very short term problem.

Some towns require all new lines to be buried.

You definitely see it a lot more in new developments

Frost heaves? I'm sure modern practice is to bury lines in flexible jacketing and address the ingress into buildings better, but I've worked in a situation where buried conduit was clearly compromised at two sites, causing water (and mud) to pour into multiple buildings. That said, my neighborhood has buried electrical mains.

In the 70s Rockefeller paid to have the lines buried/removed from the main streets in Woodstock

The rockefellers paid for it to be done in Woodstock I was told.

Do you want to wait until spring thaw to fix wiring problems? And we can't "just dig" through rock. We'd have to blast the neighborhood.

Why don’t you just, like, bury them??

• some chick in California

I think you got your answer but I’ll add that it’s really hard to fix broken power lines under ground versus if they’re above ground. You have to disable huge sections of the power grid to perform troubleshooting and identify the broken lines. Then it’s a huge pain in the ass and takes a long time to pull the lines and replace them.

I live on a hill in the sticks in Vermont at the end of the line for the local distribution network. We lost power for 4 days in the ‘big one’ just before Christmas. First priority when we got the house: backup power.

Think about how we are getting broadband throughout the state and how long that is taking. Consider that process is an absolute cakewalk when we are using existing poles and alignments.

Now think about burying the lines - many will be in existing roadways, many are across private property. Property rights, environmental permits, changing pathways if an existing aerial alignment cannot be followed.

This is a massive effort.

If we talk cost, consider the poles with transformers. A utility company rep told me shifting a transformer from the top of a pole to an underground concrete vault could cost $100k minimum under ideal conditions.

One thing Vermonters can’t stand is out of staters that come in and tell us we need to be more like California

Rocks, large rocks, and—along forest roads—root systems of trees that are challenged enuf by wet weather. We need our trees holding the roadsides together.

The same reason why most places dont

They just finished doing this in downtown Waterbury. The process took about 3 years with having to put in new sidewalks and everything.

None of the powerlines in New England really are buried because it’s so expensive and hard to do that

Ask Woodstock, VT, they’ll tell you why it’s not a wise thing to do in VT.

Money for sure. And as one dude said on here it’s easier to go thru the terrain vs dig underground. Mayyybe in Northern VT (St. Albans area) since it’s flatter terrain and less rocky.

Money money money mon-ey…MON-EY! -The O’Jays

My neighborhood has them buried

In that case why doesn't EVERY state bury its power lines? In Manhattan they do this, and they suffer much less power outages during weather patterns.

Two words - frost heaves

Rocks. Rocks everywhere.

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Too much "ledge".

Expensive + devastating to the environment.

Lots of rock in that VT soil.

From reading just abt everyone’s comments here.

My question is, What about cutting more trees around those lines? I’ve seen them do that on 89. But there’s a heck ton more to do in other areas…? I’m sure this would be an investment, but it should help when stories come in, no?
I’m aware it would mean cutting billions of trees. So I’m not saying let’s do it, just for the sake of the argument, maybe investing in cutting trees can save us money and carbon footprint in the long run

This is a common public policy/funding issue IMHO, not speaking to Vermont specifically, which I know a little less about, but this issue generally.

Although it's "expensive" it's not necessarily more expensive than doing it the current way. Though it might be, but nowhere near as much as is claimed, and I've worked on these issues about costs in the past as a mayor and municipal administrator with utility companies for example after Hurricanes Irene and Sandy.

The problem is that the current way we pay for this, the costs are spread out over many years, capitalized over time through utility's rates as well as state, and mostly federal, taxes when grants from FEMA, etc are provided back to reimburse after major events, etc. Plus the huge costs of lost food, time, economy, gas used in generators, injury, etc, etc that are not really tracked on any one agency or entity's balance sheet, but we still all pay for. So we're paying, but we're paying in smaller amounts to many different parties, whereas the cost to bury lines would collapse all of that into one place and immediately seem higher. It's a similar dynamic with things like homelessness. On that case, we actually do spend *more* on homelessness through the costs of police, ambulances, and ERs, and other healthcare and criminal justice issues that result from chronic homelessness, (plus lost economy, plus it's just morally horrible, how do we put a price on that?), but all of that costs more than it would cost to simply house homeless people. But by doing that you put all the money in one place upfront, so it seems more, rather than it being spread out in different years/governments/sectors.

We are not only sand and we have frost here that moves rocks and breaks power lines and such calf. Does not freeze for the most part

Some neighborhoods do.

Look up the origins of Star Pudding Road and get back to me

Actually, (speaking in the know here...) It's because VT has a "Investor Owned Utility (IOU)" that runs the electricity (a public good). (i.e. GMP exec compensation packages, a rotating door on the Public Utility Commission for past industry execs, and public officials, a subsidized "efficiency fund"... it goes on an on) Anyways, there are plenty of research papers on the performance of state IoU electricity models. And it becomes clear very quickly how the small state has blurred the lines on private vs public, and is one of the last IoUs standing. One result is "un-burried power lines" because, "it is too expensive" (we'd have to cut our CEO compensation and earnings per share).

Your question is offensive because it screams OUTSIDER! Who do you think you are to come to Vermont and dare question the way things are done here? If you see something, no matter how ridiculous it seems to you at first, second, third, or even the hundredth glance -- hell, even if you've studied the subject matter or whatever it is, in great detail over the course of a storied career -- keep your coddled, privileged, uninformed, elitist, and patently "un-Vermont" ideas to yourself. You are and always will be a know-nothing flatlander.

You should have asked which brand and size generator you should buy, from whom, and what a fair price is for installing it. Don't think about cause-based approaches to problem solving at this scale, think about creative reactive work-around "fixes" to perpetually disruptive conditions and you'll be fine. A good test for whether you're doing it right (and well) is if your process begins seeming repetitive and starts feeling like you're in a "death by a thousand paper cuts" spiral. Common tells or giveaways that you've arrived at "right mind", are when you stop saying out loud "WTF," or "You've got to be f%&$ing kidding me", etc., and just think it, like a stoic might.

Oh yeah, welcome!

Got more slate than dirt in hubbardton lol

Power lines are paid for by whoever needs to extend then to get access to a new area. In a new construction house project, this is a significant expanse. Buried lines are more expensive than above ground lines. They also require an easement of like 50 ft on either side of bee buried limes which means clear cutting those trees and never letting them grow back - due to regulations. I determined that it was about 3x cheaper to simply build an off grid solar system than extehd the power lines, and don't regret my decision one bit

We have to keep the Vermont trolls fenced in somehow.

Buried power lines are typically put in when neighborhoods are built. Many of the homes in Vermont were built before the grid was even a thing. Unless it’s a new neighborhood, I imagine costs would be the prohibitive factor in why they aren’t underground.

We are. It takes time

Consider that a lot of Vermont wasn’t on the grid till the 1930’s when the Federal Government instituted the Rural Electrification Program . At that time , most of the State was still open fields and pasture and the early lines were installed the easiest routes which often didn’t follow roads. The end result is that a lot of our current grid in now buried in the grown-in forrest and often hard to access. These sections are very costly to keep cleared. The trimming crews show up on our farm every few years to hack back the growth along these lines. Storm damage repairs are time consuming and due to demographics, our isolated lines are often the last to be fixed. Such is life on the back roads of Vermont. Losing power 2-3 times a year is expected. It will be 100 years before our lines are buried.

Because Vermont doesn't like to spend money on infrastructure, housing, or businesses. By the numbers, it will spend the most on law enforcement, prisons, and "emergency services", that all would not be as needed if those resources were spent on the first three more to begin with, but no one likes win-win's here.

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Lasers.

I've been saying this my whole life. I do not understand why this isn't a national initiative, honestly. Even the substations should be underground. The only reason it's not being done is because 'it would cost too much' (they say as they have to pay out hundreds of billions in repair and replacement costs after each next disaster).

California buries it's power lines not because of the cost but because the cost point was decades of fires caused by faulty power lines. The northeast may start doing that in the future, with how uncertain climate change makes things

it’s definitely more expensive to have to annually fix these things and send out the manpower from other agencies to deal with the emergencies. Not sure why Vermont hasn’t gotten on the ball yet either.