Xcel power line work complete
by Lisa Crockett
A months-long process of negotiating the height of towers installed along the Xcel Corridor in Castle Pines North (CPN) has finally come to its conclusion.
Citizens in the area did not respond favorably when Xcel erected a 180 foot tower at the top of the ridge line above Coyote Ridge Park and CPN’s Serena subdivision more than a year ago.
“After a lot of discussion, Xcel accepted the challenge to meet the needs of the community,” said Bruce Thompson, a retired engineer and CPN resident who headed a citizens’ task force on the matter. “They reduced five tall poles to one medium-sized set of poles and two sets of short poles.”
Xcel had erected the towering poles in order to accommodate the need for clearance for lines to cross each other. After Thompson and the seven other citizens serving on the task force presented their ideas to Xcel, engineers devised a way for lines to cross under rather than over each other, which allowed for much shorter poles.
Xcel further minimized the visual impact of some of the poles by placing them behind the ridge.
Wiring on the new lines was completed at the end of April.
