Community Action on Powerlines

Yep, show up with the cash to pay to bury it or re-route it.

Call your county parks department if so owned and ask for someone up the pecking order and try that route. Point out, that this is a potential liability situation that could expose the property owner to litigation.
If the property is owned by the county then if no luck go to the Risk Department and or County Attorney's office with the same argument.

They grasp the seriousness of litigation and exposure in the local paper.

You will probably find there are no live exposed wires but are encased in insulation.

Good luck though

I spoke with the utility company. They said they would be happy to relocate it is the State of AL pays for it. They can relocate it for $500 for each pole riser and I think he said $1 per foot for pulling line, but that seems low. All told it was $1,200 if the conduit is existing. I reached out to Parks & Rec last year and they told me to go to another park for launching and that while this was not expensive it was also not a priority.
I guess I can always coordinate with local news and park my cat mast up by the power line for an interview.

Hobie had a big push for this kind of power line moving thing to stop people from getting killed. Might do sme research on that and how they approached it. I move power feeds all the time at work. It's going to be more than $1,200. First, they're going to need to run the appropriate conduit, as mentioned, then likely as not will want to pull new wire. May be that cheap if this is a seriously short run though. If you know an electrician, get him to give you a rough estimate.

To actually get it done, however probably looks like an up-front agreement with the parks board that if you raise the money to do it, the money would go to the project.

I reached out to Parks & Rec last year and they told me to go to another park for launching and that while this was not expensive it was also not a priority.
I guess I can always coordinate with local news and park my cat mast up by the power line for an interview.

i think your best recourse is to get in touch with the town/city council but lacking any community support or reason they may say "yes we will look into it" ... and never move on it

The county reach back out to me and they have funding for small projects like this (thanks to gasoline taxes). They will be procuring a total cost and will let me know if they are proceeding with it.

That is awesome!

You can explain to the city council that the reason for plastic top on all US made hobies was for settlement of an expensive lawsuit after the 7th kid died in the early '70's. My invited crew mate (and a certain buyer) died on the factory Stiletto 30 prototype in 1980 in Sarasota, Fl. I personally caused several wires to be raised in Michigan and just missed a wire going up a creek on the Bruce Grey penninsula of Georgion Bay. Canada Power quickly raised that one. The country wasn"t ready for the new tall mast breed of sailboat in the '70"s and incidents happened everywhere. Pete

There were a couple of damned unfortunate events here in Texas where I think scouts died hitting lines while sailing on a lake. I think in the past 5 years, and the local authority was getting raked over the coals for the low lines.

Fwiw, here's my experience with it.

The short version is: Sometimes people Just Get the danger and liability issues, and don't need any convincing.

https://nitpickingbastard.wordpress.com/2015/07/08/a-rare-and-happy-story-of-sailboats-wires-and-people-who-do-the-right-thing/

Edited by jonathan162 on Feb 20, 2021 - 05:50 PM.