‘Repair of weather heads up to homeowners’

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Commonwealth Utilities Corp. crew will aim to go to every service connection and let homeowners know of the condition of their wires, weather heads, and meter sockets that may need to be fixed, says acting CUC executive director John Riegel.

But the repairs of these weather heads are the responsibility of the homeowner, according to Riegel.

“If there’s a problem…they will let the homeowners know,” he said.

Riegel was clarifying reports about why some houses near main power lines have been reenergized while others nearby are not.

He clarified that damaged weather heads are the homeowner’s responsibility to repair. CUC, though, can assist and inspect if the weather head—which accepts wire from power poles—are good to “hook up” to the main.

When asked to clarify reports about political pressure to have certain areas of island hooked up, Riegel said he has not gotten any calls from politicians.

Riegel said there has been some push for Rota and Tinian housing units associated with the local hospital to get power, but other than that, he has not gotten any calls.

Riegel said CUC’s next big task is to facilitate the arrival of more power poles and transformers.

CUC will no longer be shipping hundreds of power poles via airlift, as it has been found too “expensive and impractical,” according to Riegel.

Instead of just three trips, they’ve estimated that the plane assigned to airlift poles will require a couple more trips, for example, to get the needed poles to the island.

He said the poles will instead be shipped. As for transformers, they will be flown to island, according to Riegel.

Dennis B. Chan | Reporter
Dennis Chan covers education, environment, utilities, and air and seaport issues in the CNMI. He graduated with a degree in English Literature from the University of Guam. Contact him at dennis_chan@saipantribune.com.

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