Use of Area Under Overhead Power Lines
Use of the area below an overhead line is restricted because objects must not come too close to the energized conductors. Overhead lines and structures may shed ice, creating a hazard. Radio reception can be impaired under a power line, due both to shielding of a receiver antenna by the overhead conductors, and by partial discharge at insulators and sharp points of the conductors which creates radio noise.
In the area surrounding overhead lines it is dangerous to risk interference; e.g. flying kites or balloons, using ladders or operating machinery.
Overhead distribution and transmission lines near airfields are often marked on maps, and the lines themselves marked with conspicuous plastic reflectors, to warn pilots of the presence of conductors.
Construction of overhead power lines, especially in wilderness areas, may have significant environmental effects. Environmental studies for such projects may consider the effect of brush clearing, changed migration routes for migratory animals, possible access by predators and humans along transmission corridors, disturbances of fish habitat at stream crossings, and other effects.
Read more about this topic: Overhead Power Line
Famous quotes containing the words area, overhead, power and/or lines:
“... nothing is more human than substituting the quantity of words and actions for their character. But using imprecise words is very similar to using lots of words, for the more imprecise a word is, the greater the area it covers.”
—Robert Musil (1880–1942)
“During a walk or in a book or in the middle of an embrace, suddenly I awake to a stark amazement at everything. The bare fact of existence paralyzes me... To be alive is so incredible that all I can do is to lie still and merely breathe—like an infant on its back in a cot. It is impossible to be interested in anything in particular while overhead the sun shines or underneath my feet grows a single blade of grass.”
—W.N.P. Barbellion (1889–1919)
“The open frontier, the hardships of homesteading from scratch, the wealth of natural resources, the whole vast challenge of a continent waiting to be exploited, combined to produce a prevailing materialism and an American drive bent as much, if not more, on money, property, and power than was true of the Old World from which we had fled.”
—Barbara Tuchman (1912–1989)
“There they lived on, those New England people, farmer lives, father and grandfather and great-grandfather, on and on without noise, keeping up tradition, and expecting, beside fair weather and abundant harvests, we did not learn what. They were contented to live, since it was so contrived for them, and where their lines had fallen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)