Going Underground: BGE Buries Lines

Wednesday was a big day for Cathy Eshmont and her neighbors.

For years, they say, their Dunloggin neighborhood has been plagued with an unusual number of power outages.

While Eshmont explained over the phone the process she’d gone through with BGE -- which ultimately led to an investigation of the company -- dogs barked in the background. 

“That means someone’s out there,” she said. “The dogs are having a fit because workers are here to hook up new, underground lines.”

BGE had begun the fourth in a four-step process that the company has said will improve reliability in the Dunloggin neighborhood.

The first was replacing outdated equipment, the second was installing smart fuses. “That enraged us instead of placating us,” Eshmont said, because the technology has been around for a while. 

“We found out the northern section [of the neighborhood] already had them,” she said.

The third part of BGE’s process was intense tree trimming. And on Wed., June 13, workers were working on the final step, burying some lines underground.

Eshmont posted some pictures of the work on the Reliability4HoCo Facebook page, where she and her neighbors and residents of other Ellicott City neighborhoods compare notes on blackouts, brown outs, downed trees and all things power-related.

She has been working to help organize other neighborhoods across Ellicott City with similar concerns through Reliability4HoCo and was able to get more than 300 residents to sign a petition to the Pubic Service Commission, . 

The results of that investigation are due at the end of the year.

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