West Kelowna is finally looking at options for an upgrade of its precarious collection to the electrical grid, but residents are concerned it’s going to be ugly.

Dozens of tall metal towers more than 100-feet tall, hoisting cable in a line, just to make sure roughly 45,000 people have a redundant source of electricity.

They’re asking a question many have wondered in Beautiful British Columbia — why don’t we bury our unsightly power lines?

It’s rare in B.C., as opposed to other provinces like Alberta, since it’s difficult and expensive to dig through the rocky terrain. But some people in West Kelowna say they’re being short-sighted.

BC Hydro’s assistant project manager Jason Kim explained the issue in a presentation about building new transmission lines through the area at a council meeting on May 26.

“Underground infrastructure can cost about 10 to 15 times as much as overhead power lines,” he said at the meeting. “If there is an outage to an underground power line there is a longer reconstruction time as well.”

Mick Wood is a resident in West Kelowna and he had some concerns about overhead power lines that were echoed by several others at the council meeting.

“Ongoing maintenance, subject to numerous perils including fire, lightning, weather, wind and vehicle impact,” he said.

He said the underground lines would be worth it since they don’t need as much maintenance, won’t be affected by things like storms and car crashes, and won’t impact people’s views.

“Underground, they are more expensive upfront as we’ve already been told,” Wood said. “They’re greatly reduced maintenance, they’re subject to nearly zero perils, they have minimal clear space required, there’s no sightline exposure, and there’s little to no impact on real estate desirability or pricing.”

The reason the project is being considered at all is because the one power line in has been threatened by fire several times.

FortisBC spokesperson Gary Toft said there are some cases where underground power lines make sense like densely populated areas, or places where there isn’t enough clearance between power lines and other structures.

“We do have power lines underground in more densely populated areas in the Southern Interior, such as in some areas of Kelowna. We carefully consider undergrounding power lines as part of our planning, particularly in specific locations or when rebuilding infrastructure,” he said in an email.

Underground power lines are also significantly more expensive to maintain and repair when they break. They are protected from trees, cars and some weather, but they are affected by flooding and earthquakes.

“Because those costs are ultimately passed on to customers through electricity rates, we place a strong emphasis on keeping energy affordable and carefully weigh whether undergrounding is the most effective way to serve our customers, and safely and reliably deliver the energy they rely on,” Toft said.

BC Hydro with input from the City of West Kelowna is still planning the route for the new power lines.