A contentious power pole with a large cavity at The Sisters has now been marked for replacement.
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The power pole is so decayed you can see through it. And it is just metres from the rotted pole which snapped and started one of the St Patrick’s Day bushfires earlier this year.
Pole No.2 on the Sparrow Spur line has now been marked with a large white cross, with bands around the pole at the top and bottom, which identifies the pole as unserviceable and ready for replacement.
The Standard revealed its condition on Monday after speaking to The Sisters dairyfarmer, Jill Porter.
Powercor ordered poles in The Sisters area to be tested on Tuesday and Powercor general manager electricity networks Steven Neave had agreed to meet with The Sisters dairy farmer Jill Porter on Wednesday.
But Mr Neave cancelled the meeting, saying testing, analysis and results had not been completed.
A Powercor spokeswoman said: “Our team was delayed (on Tuesday) from doing the pole inspections we requested. As a result, not all the poles could be completed in one day.
“We have advised Mrs Porter that we will come back to her when the full results are known,” she said.
Mrs Porter, who watched some of the testing on Tuesday, said that pole was tested by technicians using the Woodscan system.
The Standard asked Powercor how it was that a decision was made to replace pole No. 2 if the test results had not been processed.
Powercor did not answer that question.
Pole No. 4 on the Sparrow Spur line sparked The Sisters/Garvoc bushfire on St Patrick's Day after it snapped in high winds.
On Monday it was revealed that pole No. 2 , just metres through pole No. 4, has a crack through the middle of the pole and a significant cavity.
A Powercor spokeswoman said then that poles in the region inspected by the St Patrick's Day bushfires had been inspected and a number were replaced.
"We have also inspected 13,500 poles in 2018 on power lines extending from Camperdown, Koroit, Terang and Warrnambool as part of our cyclical inspection program," she said.
"In addition, we have specifically checked poles similar to the one that fell in March using a technology called Woodscan and we are confident we have mitigated the chance of this happening again.
"During 2018 we invested in our largest ever capital works program as we implemented the Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission recommendations and continued to strengthen our network
"We will be discussing the poles on Mrs Porter’s property directly with her."
The Powercor spokeswoman did not respond to questions on the 2018 maintenance program operating expenditure.
During 2016 Powercor forecast a spend of $232 million but spent only $200m on the aging network.
And again in 2017 the forecast spend was $238m but the spend was only $196m, a saving of $74 million in just two years.
In addition Mrs Porter warned St Patrick's Day bushfire victims that the deadline for customers to opt out of the The Sisters/Garvoc and Terang/Cobden bushfire class actions was this Friday.
Victims who do not opt out will remain part of the Supreme Court class actions.
Insurance companies have offered a first-ever no legal costs settlements which Mrs Porter and a leading south-west civil lawyer have backed as "almost certainly" the best option for victims.
