By Monica Drake
Review Intern
How would you feel if, in your home, you had a total of five power outages since December of 2007?
This is what happened to ten houses located on O’Connor Street.
Residents on the street initiated contact with DTE for the replacement and upgrades of their utility poles, which have been in place since 1934. And, recently, new utility poles were installed on O’Connor and will, hopefully, assist in limiting the power outages.
David F. Hodges, a resident on O’Connor Street, contacted Village Manager Paul Zelenak to explain that he wanted the old utility pole removed and the electrical and warning light on the pole near the pump station moved to a new location.
DTE Energy will remove the pole and run the power to the pedestal. The Village of Lake Orion will have to pay no more than $1,205 to relocate the pump station equipment.
According to Treasurer Jan Adams, the funds for doing this work will come out of the water and sewer fund.
‘Mr. Zelenak explained to me the work the residents have done there on their own to save the village quite a bit of money over the long run here. They didn’t just come to us saying, ‘We want this pole moved for no reason,?? Councilmember Michael Toth said.
Councilmember Ken Van Portfliet said each time there is a power outage, power is, instead, run by a generator, which costs $100 an hour.
‘If there was a study to be done on it, we’d have 15 other of these stations around, and what kinds of costs are we incurring in these situations? If we do upgrade in certain circumstances, there will be savings there. To me, it’s something that’s been under our radar that we just haven’t seen that should be taken a look at. And we should have a little bit of a proactive view on it,? Van Portfliet said.
Hodges said there was a time when power went off due to winds around the lake for about 16 hours. But his and his neighbors? power remained off for an additional 24 hours.
‘If you take $100 an hour, which I think is on the low side for a generator, a truck and a van to be at that site, you’re looking at $7,200 that came out of our budget on just that one pump station alone. And that generator stays at the pump station until the power comes back on,? Hodges said.
Hodges said Comcast has already switched to the new utility poles on O’Connor Street. He called AT&T, and they said they will transfer to the new poles in the next two or three weeks.