A young man in a green Portland General Electric vest stands holding a long pole in a Westmoreland back yard. When asked “What are you doing?” he says he is checking the electric line to that house – to make sure it is high enough off the ground.
Quite separate from the periodic appearances of those Asplundh trucks which trim street trees under power poles, PGE trucks have been all around Sellwood and Westmoreland recently, with PGE “no parking” A-frames set up for long periods of time. THE BEE contacted PGE to find out why, and received the following information:
This section of town is being inspected this year on a 10-year inspection cycle. Each year about 27,000 poles and the associated overhead equipment are checked for potential violations of the National Electrical Safety Code. They also do remedial treatment to extend the life of those poles – and, in some cases, they have been replacing them…