Public Radio for the Central Kenai Peninsula
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Carhartts and Xtratufs Ball — get tickets here!

Senate bill would change state liability laws for utility poles

Cleaning up utility poles is a costly business. That’s at the heart of a senate bill that would absolve utility companies of liability if treated poles foul groundwater under state law. Federal liability laws would still apply.

SB 173 is sponsored by Senator Peter Micciche and had its second senate resources committee hearing Monday.

“All we’re doing is changing a level of state liability to the liability under federal law, the Environmental Protection Agency; a very environmentally conservative, in some ways overly conservative agency. So I just want to remind people that’s what the bill is doing, it’s changing from the fact that the state does not observe the federal law exemption to a state that does observe the federal law exemption," Micciche said.

The main question, says Anchorage based Homer Electric Association attorney Eric Fjelstad, is should the utility company be responsible for the impact a treated pole could have, especially considering the cost.

“What you heard in (committee) testimony is that’s not inexpensive. It can be up to $30,000 a pole, because you’re hiring a contractor, you’re evaluating it, you’re digging it out and then you’re literally having to dispose of that in Washington state. So the policy question is, is it appropriate to require that as a matter of course. What is the concern, is the minor amounts of contamination, and just having to, kind of pole by pole, go through and address this.”

The poles are treated with a common pesticide, used all over the United States, and on something around a quarter million utility poles here in Alaska. The problem of the poles leeching small amounts of the pesticide popped up on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. A project with the state DOT was taking ground samples around poles that had been removed. The Department of Environmental Conservation’s director of spill prevention and response, Kristin Ryan, says that work was being done to help come up with some new best practices.

“This is not something the department wants to take on. If there’s not a significant threat, and it’s almost impossible to imagine there is a significant threat here considering these poles are used so regularly all over the world, or at least in the U.S. That research is ongoing. We hope to have some results by the end of March. We’ll have some data to help us provide some guidance to the industry about how to manage the end of life for these utility poles.”

Senator Micciche says there are other avenues for property owners should there be any serious issues.

“I wanted to be able to look my constituents in the eye and say that there is other recourse if there is that minute, nearly nonexistent probability that there’s ever a transference to a water table that we have to evaluate…..”

The bill moves next to the senate rules committee.