Jan. 22, 2008 — The feds are giving the territory $5 million to bury power lines in the town of Christiansted to help reduce problems during emergencies.
The money is a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant to the V.I. Territorial Emergency Management Agency and to the V.I. Water and Power Authority. It comes in the form of two FEMA pre-disaster mitigation grants.
Delegate Donna M. Christensen, the territory's nonvoting representative in Congress and a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, congratulated VITEMA and WAPA in a news release announcing the grants.
"I was pleased to receive word of the grants," Christensen said. "$2.7 million for Phase I of the Christiansted Underground Electrical Distribution System Mitigation Project, which will run from the WAPA power plant to Christiansted along Strand and King Streets, and $2.3 million for Phase II, which will run from the end of Phase I along Strand, King, Prince, Company, Hill, Hospital and Queen Streets."
The project will go a long way to ensuring that the territory will be prepared in the event of another disaster, Christensen said.
"Burying the power lines has long been a goal of our emergency planners, and I hope that these funds will help them to achieve this in an expedient manner," she said. "I hope that this may allow WAPA to save some money and divert some of its savings to beleaguered consumers."
WAPA spokeswoman Cassandra Dunn confirmed the grants.
"Putting those lines underground will help increase efficiency in transmission and distribution," she said. "Bad weather, sea blasts, fallen trees, those are less of a problem with an underground system."
Asked whether the project would save money that could be used to provide rate relief, Dunn was cautious. Once the cables are underground, they may save some money over time, because of increased reliability and fewer repairs. But there is no immediate saving or impact on cash balances.
"The money from FEMA is going directly to the underground-power project," she said.
These grants are awarded on a competitive basis and are for a broad array of capital projects that help plan for disasters and prepare in advance to lessen their impact, according to FEMA's website.
"Funding these plans and projects reduces overall risks to the population and structures, while also reducing reliance on funding from actual disaster declarations," says FEMA's description of this program.
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