As you may have seen, PSE has finished cutting down 300 trees on 148th Avenue and NE 8th Street to build the redundant Lake Hills Transmission Line. PSE intends to install poles and wires in coming weeks.

A CENSE partner organization, 300trees.org, submitted a plan to PSE and the City of Bellevue to place the new power line underground. The proposal included cost estimates from three companies that use modern directional drilling techniques to place conduit underground with little disturbance of streets or tree roots. For a relatively small incremental cost (worst-case would be 41 cents per resident per month including interest), we would get better reliability and new full-size trees could be replanted, providing at least 50 years of continued beauty on these streets. (Read the proposal at 300trees.org)

Neither PSE nor the Bellevue City Council have acknowledged or commented on the group’s proposal. This silence is difficult to understand as the natural heritage of our “City in a Park” is permanently diminished.