After months of study, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission is being advised it should take little action when it comes to a call to require stronger wooden poles used by utilities in the state.
The recommendation comes from the Commission’s Public Utilities Division which reached its conclusions following a Notice of Inquiry launched last year into whether there is a need for stronger wooden poles. It came after one expert contended that the current resiliency of poles in Oklahoma was “inadequate and current poles are not compliant with standards.”
According to the study, Oklahoma Gas and Electric determined that if it had replaced all poles that failed a groundline assessment, it would have increased the utility’s costs by more than $200 million with the replacement of 25,000 poles.
The expert in question, Dr. Clayton Posey, formerly of Oklahoma State University, had claimed utility poles in the state were weak because they were manufactured from trees only about 30 years of age rather than older trees. The Corporation Commission gathered Posey, lumber representatives and utilities to hear input.
Posey claimed at a Corporation Commission meeting in January that it was absolutely guaranteed that the strength of poles has decreased dramatically and the state should not continue on this path, calling it a “path to destruction.” He also contended the state legislature had a responsibility to confirm the state’s utility poles met requirements of the National Electrical Safety Code.
One representative of OG&E informed commisisioners the utility was confident it met compliance with existing standards.
The PUD decided at the conclusion of the Notice of Inquiry that its investigation was “adequate to clearly demonstrate that there is no dispute as to which standards apply to the poles being procured and utilized.” It decided the dispute was centered on the interpretation of the standards.
The PUD also found that in reviewing the regulated utilities rate cases, it “has not observed exceptional costs associated with pole failures or a high rate of pole replacements.” As for contentions that older trees were needed for stronger poles, the PUD determined, “there is no clear basis to conclude that poles from younger trees are de facto of such lesser quality and charactereistics as to be inadequate, non-compliant, or otherwise inappropriate for use.”