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Keeping the Lights ON in the View Ridge Neighborhood — Public Meeting to Discuss Electric Service Reliability Improvement Project

Seattle City Light crews will begin work Oct. 13 to upgrade the underground electrical system in a southern section of the View Ridge neighborhood in order to improve the system’s reliability and better serve customers.  The boundaries for the project are approximately: NE 65th Street on the north, NE 55th Street on the south, 33rd Avenue NE on the east, and 45th Avenue NE on the west. The project is projected to last through April 2015, and will employ methods that both mitigate cost and minimize disruption to the surrounding neighborhood.

Initial construction will involve the installation of new underground conduit, which crews will pull cable through at a later date. This work marks the next step in a series of efforts taken by Seattle City Light to improve the system’s electric reliability. Previously, City Light crews tested the vitality of cables in the area in order to identify sections that needed replacing.

During the construction period, crews will use a small-diameter boring method called horizontal directional drilling (HDD), a more cost-efficient and less intrusive alternative to open trenching. All work will be kept within city ordinances and standards, however customers should expect some noise, traffic, and dust during construction. While power outages will be required to ensure safety, all affected customers will be notified in advance of the date and time, as well as expected duration of the outages.

City Light will be hosting a community meeting to explain the details of the project on Oct. 9, from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., at Magnuson Park, The Brig (6344 NE 74th St.), Seattle, WA 98115.

For more information about this and other City Light construction projects, please visit http://www.seattle.gov/light/aboutus/construction/.

About Seattle City Light
Seattle City Light is the 10th largest public electric utility in the United States. It has some of the lowest cost customer rates of any urban utility, providing reliable, renewable and environmentally responsible power to nearly 1 million Seattle area residents. City Light has been greenhouse gas neutral since 2005, the first electric utility in the nation to achieve that distinction.