Riverhead Town Councilman Jim Wooten has a list of about 500 damaged poles still standing in Riverhead alone.
Some poles are so badly damaged they are held up entirely by the wires attached to them, according to County Legislator Ed Romaine (R-Center Moriches).
"This really is a serious problem," he said, noting that Mr. Wooten had recently showed him one severely damaged pole on Sound Avenue in Riverhead.
"I thought it was going to fall down any second," Mr. Romaine said. "That day was so windy and we were just standing there watching this broken pole sway back and forth. And what's worse is that the rope it's tied to is not even taut."
"Double wood" -- the term used to describe an old and new pole tethered together -- "should be in place only for a short period to allow utility companies a reasonable amount of time to move their equipment," Mr. Wooten said. "It's unnecessary for it to take longer than 90 days."
They had hoped that adopting legislation setting stiff fines for leaving the old poles in place after replacements have been installed would do the trick.
But the county may have no authority to regulate utility poles, according Verizon officials and Legislator Jack Eddington (D-Patchogue). The parties spoke at a meeting last week.
John Bonomo, a Verizon spokesman, said that with LIPA being a state agency, that one utility might not be subject to a county law. "But it was not something that was said definitively," he said. "It was discussed as a belief or a possibility, and would need further verification to determine the appropriate jurisdiction.
Asserting that there are about 11,000 unsightly tethered utility poles across Suffolk County, Mr. Eddington said "we'll have to see" if Verizon officials are correct. So far, the county Department of Public Works has agreed with Verizon, he said.
"If we can't do anything, then I'll just have to figure out how we petition the [state] government on this," he said.
Mr. Eddington and Mr, Romaine have jointly introduced legislation that would require utility companies like Verizon to remove damaged poles within 90 days or face fines. But the question of jurisdiction, especially considering the mix of public and private utilities that have to work together to tackle infrastructure problems, has stalled their proposal.
In most cases, the Long Island Power Authority is first on the scene when a damaged utility pole is damaged. LIPA is usually the one to erect new poles. Cable and telephone lines are left on the damaged pole, which is tethered to the new pole. In most instances, Verizon is the last utility to remove its wires from a damaged pole, making it responsible for the pole's removal.
Verizon is ratcheting up efforts to address the problem, its corporate spokesman said.
"We've been pretty diligent about it because we know that in a lot of cases it creates an unsafe condition, or even an unsightly condition," Mr. Bonomo said. "The rule of thumb is that whichever [utility] is the last off" the old pole "has the responsibility for removing the pole. And we're usually stuck with the job and that's fine. It's been a focus for us in 2009 and we've made some pretty good strides in 2010."
He said he believed local laws would only hurt the company's regional goals for correction the problem.
"The state Public Service Commission already has a proceeding underway that brings together all the interested parties on this issue," he said. "We should let the commission process go through, rather than having one set of regulations in one town or county and another set of regulations elsewhere. That would result in a kind of patchwork system. And that doesn't help anybody."
mwhite@timesreview.com