Pending Utility Construction Project

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By Selectboard Member Emily Beer

At last night’s Selectboard meeting, Green Mountain Power asked the Selectboard to allow it to begin a construction project in town. The project is part of GMP’s Zero Outage Initiative, and would involve the adding/replacing new poles. The Selectboard wants to give members of the town an opportunity to chime in on this issue, so it tabled the vote until the next meeting (April 15) and asked GMP to return to that meeting as well.

Some info from last night’s discussion:

  • The project is on Grassy Brook Road, from Hill Road to Whitney Hill Road
  • There are approximately 50 work locations
  • New poles should significant improve our power line resiliency and will hopefully prevent a single tree fall from knocking out power to the rest of town (at least in this section of the system)
  • The job should take about 2 months, and GMP is prepared to start very soon after approval
  • Because other companies use the poles, GMP cannot immediately remove the old poles. They work with comm companies to try to get them to come and move their lines, but GMP can not guarantee when/whether this work will occur. So we will have double poles for some time (no one knows how long)

This is not a complete summary – please review the recording from the April 1 meeting to hear GMP’s presentation and answers to Selectboard questions. Maps of the project are available in the town office. If you have questions, comments, or concerns, please come to our April 15 meeting. 

https://www.fact8.com/on-fact-tv/government-programming/brookline-select-board/town-of-brookline-select-board-meeting-april-1-2025/