MEMPHIS, Tenn — Memphis Light, Gas and Water President Doug McGowen said the utility is making progress after a summer of major storms and outages.
During his monthly update Tuesday, McGowen said MLGW’s five-year infrastructure improvement plan is now three and a half years complete. Among the improvements are a new water pumping station to replace Allen Station, substation improvements in Orange Mound – which is ranked as the highest outage zip code in Memphis, and catching up on tree trimming around power lines, which MLGW leaders admit is behind.
"It's a comprehensive approach,” said McGowen. “We have to update our system to make it more resilient and more reliable. We also have to get ahead of the vegetation management, that is where we are really behind. There is also a significant amount of trees on private property that represent a hazard to our infrastructure but is not within our capacity to take care of.”
The entire infrastructure plan is expected to cost $1.2 billion by 2025. MLGW is also seeking hundreds of millions of federal dollars to assist in the overall price tag.