The plan would allow United Illuminating to erect 102 steel towers along the Metro-North rail line ranging in height from 95 to 195 feet, carrying a new 115,000-volt power line to the utility’s Congress Street substation downtown. It’s part of a bigger 25-mile plan to bring the high-voltage line from the Westport-Fairfield border and Bridgeport, linking sections through Stratford and West Haven with 500 new galvanized steel towers, then finally east to New Haven. UI is a subsidiary of Avangrid, a division of Spain-based Iberdrola. Concerns vary along the potentially affected area, many worried the gigantic power lines and poles will destroy the character of the community. UI has budgeted $30 million for acquiring the estimated 19.3 acres along the 7.3 miles, but Fairfield officials believe the actual values of properties could be three to five times as much. The utility estimates it would cost $840 million to $1 billion estimate to bury the transmission lines underground, although property owners have been critical of those estimates, suggesting they are inflated. Similar burials of lines cost between $23 million and $33 million per mile, citing state estimates and similar projects in Connecticut and New York.
How 190-foot poles and power lines have turned into one of CT’s biggest controversies
