CITYWATCH Back and forth continues in power line dispute BY BRIAN C. JONES

The dispute over whether to bury heavy-duty electric transmission lines that cross the Providence waterfront remains snarled, despite two forums — one private, the other public — designed to help resolve the controversy.

A three-way meeting between Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, state Department of Transportation director James R. Capaldi, and Michael F. Ryan, executive vice president of Narragansett Electric Company, produced no settlement on Tuesday, December 16. The same afternoon, a three-and-a-half-hour hearing by the state Public Utilities Commission showed strong public support for burying the lines, but left two PUC members and Narragansett Electric officials worried about who would pay the extra underground costs.

The 1.2 mile-long transmission cables, strung from15 metal towers, run across the Providence River, through India Point Park, then across the Seekonk River to East Providence. They are to be moved as part of the $446 million relocation of Interstate 195, where the expressway links to Interstate 95.

A variety of groups, including the Friends of India Point Park, are urging that the power lines be placed underground, saying they are an industrial scar across rare waterfront. Narragansett Electric is willing to bury the system — if somebody else pays the difference between the $1.7 million cost of the aboveground relocation and the $8.2 million to $9.1 million price of burial.

A 45-minute meeting in AG Lynch’s Providence office did not produce a solution, according to spokespersons for Lynch and Ryan.

According to Frederick L. Mason III, a Narragansett vice president, DOT’s Capaldi said that the dispute should not delay the highway, and that the lines must be moved "even if on a temporary basis." The department has said the lines must be shifted by November 2005. Lynch spokesman Michael J. Healey said the attorney general repeated his position that the lines should be buried, and told the meeting that the parties should work to find "creative" ways to finance the cost. Healey did not explain what those creative ways might be. "He’s guardedly optimistic" about a solution, Healey said of Lynch, adding that the attorney general is "resolute" on the issue. "He believes on the basis of the quality of life and the basis of the environment, the basis of the potential for economic development, and the health of the community, that these lines should be buried."

Meanwhile, about a dozen witnesses testified on behalf of the burial option at a PUC hearing in Warwick, packed by some 50 spectators, as the commission gathered opinions before it offers an advisory opinion to another state agency — the Energy Facility Siting Board — that will actually decide the issue early next year.

Henry D. Sharpe Jr., the retired industrialist whose mother, Mary Elizabeth Sharpe, spearheaded transformation of former scrap and rail yards into India Point Park during the 1960s and 1970s, said transmission lines spoil any landmark. "I don’t remember seeing high wires over the Roman Senate in Rome . . . or placed over the State House," said Sharpe, who called the India Point area one of the state’s greatest assets.

Commissioner Robert B. Holbrook said that while he likes the concept of putting the cables underground, he worries that whenever electric rates are raised, the result is "money being taken out of the Rhode Island economy."

Kate F. Racine, the commissioner who presided at the hearing, urged the attorney general’s department, the electric company, and other parties to meet to discuss such issues as what the cost might be to ratepayers, and where other sources of money could be found, before the next PUC hearing on January 13 at 9:30 a.m. at 89 Jefferson Boulevard in Warwick.