As a result of last week’s Montclair town council meeting, which was dominated by citizen and official objections to PSE&G’s recent installation of high voltage power lines on Gray Street, there appears to be forward movement to finding an alternative solution to the neighborhood’s power outages.

Resident Brad Thatcher, who has emerged as a spokesperson for the citizen movement fighting the utility company, told Baristanet this morning that the town has filed an official complaint with the NJ Board of Public Utilities, demanding alternatives. Thatcher hopes that the recipients at BPU are taking the message seriously, but doesn’t know how it has been received.

Here’s Thatcher’s synopsis of the solution they’re pushing for:

There’s an existing right of way access line of poles along the North side of the [Glen Ridge] Country Club property. High voltage lines already come up from Broad Street on Yantecaw and stop at the Glen Ridge/Bloomfield border. We believe PSE&G could easily run the 13 kva lines planned for Gray [Street], down this existing country club line and then cross Yantecaw at the Bloomfield border to connect to those existing lines. It would spare Glen Ridge, Montclair and Bloomfield from having to put in additional poles in the front yards by simply connecting from the North side of the country club line to the existing Yantecaw line. We think it would be cheaper than the Gray Street route and be a win for both towns and the country club.

We would expect they would remove the new poles they installed if they use an alternate route. All along, they’ve said Gray Street would NOT get new infrastructure serving the homes on Gray Street, with the exception of 3 homes that connect to the back yard lines. Gray would keep the existing single wire serving the homes that runs down just over half the block in the front regardless of what plans they choose.

If they run the “business” 3 phase lines down the country club, they could still run a new single phase line across the street and down the back yards of Harvard (those lines currently cross the street and go to the country club). That’s the alternative we are pushing them to adopt. What’s been so maddening is they want to run the country club 3 phase business lines down our block without any benefit to the block. They’ve explained that the 3 phase lines entail 5 wires that would run down our block.

Any electrical engineers out there who want to weigh in on this proposed alternative?

Related Posts:

• Silent Protest on Gray Street
• Occupy PSE&G!
• Montclair, PSE&G in Talks on Gray Street Matter