Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Residents want cables buried
Visitors to the Canary Islands can hardly miss these ugly sights that mar the landscape: the proliferation of overhead electrical cables, strung up like the islands' dirty laundry everywhere.
Well, those that are still standing after Tropical Storm Delta. For a few brief moments, when they said that the fallen lines would be put underground temporarily while the network was rebuilt, I hoped that the powers that be would "see the light".
The cables had already proven to be a danger. This was most dramatically demonstrated when a rescue helicopter became entangled, killing all five occupants, while trying to take injured away from a bus accident in Gran Canaria in March 2004.
It is also highly likely that the cables have been cause of more than one near miss, especially as helicopters are much needed for rescues, air lifts and firefighting around our rugged terrain.
What the health implications of such high tension wires are, depends on which expert you talk to. On islands that rely heavily on tourism and aesthetics of the landscape for their livelihood, then this OUGHT to also be taken into consideration, but I have never heard it being mentioned in that light.
My late father had been an electrical engineer. Not just any old "spark" mind you, he'd been responsible, during a large and fairly distinguished career in which he met with, legend, Red Adair, for designing humongous transformers and for supplying electrical equipment for the Iranian oil fields (pre-Revolution).
Therefore, I have no trouble in accepting his estimation that these hanging disasters waiting to happen are all wrong.
The fact that the cables are strung up in the manner they are, he explained, is the very cause of the disruptions to supply that we get every time there is a bit of bad weather. It only takes a strong wind - something so common in the Canaries that he was frankly exasperated by the ill considered methods - to bring cables too close together and some rain to cause a short.
Indeed, I've watched horrified as cables attached to the roof of my house created veritable firework displays with white hot sparks flying everywhere, in only a minor storm.
Not only does this cause unnecessary interruptions in the electrical supply, with all its accompanying inconveniences; inability to work, negative effects on health through lack of facilities, loss of frozen food, etc., but as all Canary Island residents will confirm, inevitably causes surges that damage appliances that then have to be replaced. I've never bothered to claim against Unelco, because I am sure it would only waste even more of my time, but I have lost count of the cost of these additional expenses and losses over the years.
Oh, I accept that once upon a time there was probably neither the money nor the capability to bury cables, given the hard, volcanic rock that makes up a goodly part of the islands' surfaces, but that was then. This is the 21st Century.
And if, as the experts predict from the warming of the oceans, that the Canary Islands are likely to see more of the weather phenomenon like Tropical Storm Delta that visited us last November, then I think we all, residents and authorities alike, really NEED to see this as the wake up call.
Recently in Madrid, the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Commerce, José Montilla, promised better stability for the Canarian electrical system and, indeed, an investment of 5.5 million Euros has already been approved for the archipelago.
However, in the same discussion, Montilla explained that on many occasions projects for the improvement of the electrical system in the islands have been paralysed by "society's rejection". The minister appears to blame the poor situation in the electrical network as being the responsibility of residents' opposition to the hanging cables and sought to remind citizens that energy is transported through cables and not waves through the air. If I am reading the report correctly and I am sure I am, the minister has insulted a lot of people.
Of course we know that electricity comes through cables. All residents want, for the sake of our health, safety and that promised stability, is for those cables to be buried.
And it very much depends on how you define the word "improvement" really. Residents' definition would be focussed on stability, not just in the provision of more wires, temporarily, until the next disaster hits and brings them back down again.
For what it's worth, my judgement is that residents are not asking for these lines to be placed underground because they want to be awkward and belligerent, they are doing so because that is what NEEDS to be done. For good reasons.
Montilla also spoke of demonstrations by residents the lack of decision on the part of authorities, but was optimistic for the future. And one of the first chapters in that future promptly arrived, in the shape of around 100 residents of El Rosario in Tenerife who demonstrated, asking that the high tension cables that pass through the district be put underground.
ABC goes on to report, "What is curious is that this petition is nothing new, not just in El Rosario, but also in other districts of the archipelago."
El Rosario has 12,000 inhabitants, more than half of whom were left without electricity, water, telephones or mobiles for several days after the passing of Tropical Storm Delta in November. This event placed both the electrical system itself and the policies of Endesa Unelco firmly back into the limelight.
Plackards said "Don't play with our health", but this was not just a residents' initiative, the town hall also backed it. Indeed, all political flavours had voted for them to do so and mayor, Macario Benítez, indicated that they had been asking Unelco since 2004 for them to put the lines underground, to coincide with the widening of the motorway. The town hall says it intends to continue backing the residents of Tabaiba y Radazul in this and hope to obtain a satisfactory response.
But common sense, it seems, can be buried. Just not cables.
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