Saint Clair officials say they’re moving toward establishing a second feeder line for electric service in the borough after recent and persistent outages have left residents and businesses frustrated.
That additional line, however, will come at a cost to the Borough.
At Tuesday’s regular council meeting, Council President Thomas Dempsey told a concerned resident that they’re “on board” with creating a second service line into Saint Clair. The Borough delivers electric service from PPL Electric. There’s currently one “feeder” line into the Borough and officials say power outages are due to tree limbs hanging near that line. And when those limbs break and impact the line, service is disrupted.
Resident Vaughn Vesay told council members Tuesday that Saint Clair is fortunate not to have lost electricity over the past weekend – when several thousand other Schuylkill County residents were affected by severe storms – due to the extreme heat and the borough’s elderly population.
“We really need to start looking into this,” Vesay said, telling members that he believes a majority of residents support a second line despite the cost.
The Borough’s electrical engineer, Norm Baron, told council that he’s meeting with PPL Electric on July 23 to discuss Saint Clair’s service reliability. In that meeting, he also expects to discuss the option of a second feeder line.
Baron said the cost of adding a second feeder line to Saint Clair is about $1.5 million, but that estimate is several years old.
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