(Sign seen in project zone last July – photo sent by Nathan)

With another recent outage, Brace Point-area residents are eager for long-promised underground updates – but after an announcement this past summer that work was about to get going, some have noticed an absence of work crews. We asked Seattle City Light what’s going on – or, in this case, not going on. Back in October, spokesperson Julie Moore told us SCL was waiting for an environmental permit. Now, she says, that’s in hand but they haven’t finished working out ensuing details with the contractor, so crews won’t be working until after the first of the year: “The City received the expected pollution-discharge permit in early November. We are coordinating with the contractor on final requirements that must be in place before we can issue the notice to proceed (NTP). The date of issuance is not set, though will not occur before the end of the year (we try to avoid disruptions and planned outages around the holidays anyway). We will notify impacted customers once the NTP is issued.” The contractor is Olson Brothers Excavating of Puyallup; the work could take up to three years.