Streetlight Upgrades In Cashmere Uncover Old Wiring, Grounding

The City of Cashmere recently replaced it streetlights with LED lighting. Little did they suspect that the act of switching out old light bulbs would cause a whole new set of problems. Marcus Bellissimo reports.

The Chelan PUD started working with the five cities in the county to convert their streetlights to LED lamps last fall.

Switching from the older bulbs to the new LED’s, ground circuits or GFCI’s needed to be installed to bring the streetlights up to code. The installation of the GFCI’s revealed breaks in the existing wiring that’s been underground for over thirty-plus years.

The disruption of the ground circuits has led to batches of streetlights going out, sometimes for weeks at a time. Contractors are troubleshooting and repairing the aging wiring and should be completed by the end of June.