Lines Are Coming Down : And Residents Are of a View to String Along

Shelley Riehl has a sure-fire way of letting her 2-year-old son know instantly and precisely where she has just spotted a California gray whale migrating past the family’s hilltop home in South Laguna.

“I tell him it’s either above the wires or below the wires,” Riehl said, referring to power lines that are strung from pole to pole across the middle of her otherwise-magnificent ocean view.

Within about 2 weeks, however, Riehl, 39, is going to have to find some other reference point for whale spotting. Work crews from San Diego Gas & Electric Co. on Monday began tearing down overhead wires and poles in front of her home and dozens of others along Coast Highway in South Laguna.

The lines and poles are being removed under a statewide program by the California Public Utilities Commission, in part to beautify scenic areas such as the Laguna Beach coastline, Laguna Beach City Manager Kenneth C. Frank said.

The program also aims to reduce the number of power outages caused by such external factors as squirrels nibbling transmission cables, Frank said. Underground wiring is not as susceptible to such damage, he said.

All but tiny stretches of Coast Highway at the extreme north and south ends of the city have been cleared of overhead wiring over the past decade, Frank said.

Frank said the city also is working with Southern California Edison Co., the other major electrical utility for Laguna Beach, to remove overhead wiring from Laguna Canyon Road and the downtown business district.

The work currently under way in South Laguna involves a two-phase removal project along a 1-mile stretch of Coast Highway between La Senda Drive and West Street, according to Mike Tao, SDG&E; district engineering supervisor.

During the first phase of the current project, which began Monday, utility crews are removing wires between La Senda Drive and 5th Avenue, a process expected to take about 2 weeks, Tao said. Later this year, he said, overhead utility lines will be removed along a one-third-mile stretch between 5th Avenue and West Street.

Also participating in the work are crews from General Telephone Co. and Dimension Cable, which use the same lines to distribute their services. Tao said the work crew that last finishes removing its wiring is responsible for removing the poles.

Planning for the current project actually began more than 3 years ago, Tao said, when county officials representing South Laguna, before its annexation to Laguna Beach, petitioned SDG&E; to take out the overhead lines.

Under a funding plan set up by the Public Utilities Commission, local entities such as Orange County or Laguna Beach are allocated a certain amount of money from a power company’s budget for removing overhead lines. The county used $700,000 of its SDG&E; allocation to pay for the first phase of the current removal plan, Tao said.

But when South Laguna was annexed by Laguna Beach on Dec. 31, 1987, the county balked at using another $600,000 of its allocation to finance the second phase of the plan, Tao said. Consequently, Laguna Beach city officials were asked to pick up the tab out of their allocation, he said.