A Maginot Line marches across city

October 15, 11:16 AMSouth St. Paul ExaminerRob Shirk

Previous Next

1 comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the South St. Paul Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

                               A similar Maginot Line

A guest from rural Wisconsin was sitting outside on the patio recently when, dumbfounded, she bellowed, "What is that?"  "What is what?", I asked. She looked upwards into the fading yellow of the neighboring maple tree and pointed...to the power line of which I don't think I've noticed for years.

Many things become invisible to us as the unfamiliar becomes familiar and a topic of hot conversation at one time passes silently by as the months and years dull our observations. So it is with The South St. Paul Maginot Line. A little history, first.

Starting in the south of France on the Italian border and weaving its way north to Belgium, the Maginot Line was the French answer to the successful static defenses of WWl. The idea of concrete fortifications interconnected by tunnels was adopted throughout Europe along the Franco-German lines on both sides, the Siegfried Line being the corresponding German defense facing France.

It didn't work out the way the French had hoped and the The Wehrmacht hardly noticed the massive guns and bunkers as they swept into Belgium. After looking at The Maginot Line all those years it had become part of the landscape to the Germans as well as the French.

The fortifications covered hundreds of miles and to this day a tourist can easily gaze from one bunker to the next and so on for as long as the eye can see. In South St. Paul the Excel Power Line is lined up like dominoes, and they are built straighter than a preacher, also for as far as the eye can see.

Excel Energy's power line stretching from Newport in the east to Bloomington in the west has cut across South St. Paul's homes and gardens for decades, and what is so striking about it all is the proximity to the houses and there is no way to avoid this. The line and the land under it are owned by Excel Energy and leased to the people living under it and even though you'd get a bigger yard you'd also be responsible for its upkeep.

The line, carrying up to 115 kilovolts of power, has been controversial over the years for a couple of reasons. Health concerns took center stage for a while. For those living right under the line there was the EMF controversy which proved nothing conclusive for either argument. Aesthetics played a pivotal role, also, as the two wooden  pylon design was upgraded to a single, very tall, metal pole capable of being upgraded in the future. Many conversations were held down the alleyways, churches, and restaurants of the imperious blight that was to stride across our fair town, somehow forgetting there were poles there to begin with. Power pole fashion was born but died a quick death when the metal poles were installed.

I used to look up to the poles, now and then, to see what my guest saw that autumn afternoon. I have not done it in years. The line has blended into my sensibilities although is not unusual to notice it if I pass directly underneath, gazing from side to side, seeing the poles lined up like so many redoubts on The Maginot Line.

We are not alone in the power pole issue. Richard Taylor tells it like it is in Denver.