Guam power lines and brown treesnakes are an electric mix
Of all the economic impacts to Guam due to the introduction of the brown treesnake (Boiga irregularis), the effects on the power infrastructure are the easiest to understand.
Brown treesnakes climbing on Guam’s power infrastructure are responsible for hundreds of outages resulting in power loss to thousands of residents each year. The snakes have long bodies that are well-suited for connecting electrical circuits or bridging live wires, resulting in dangerous electrical surges that damage infrastructure and equipment. Although Guam has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars modernizing, protecting, and snake proofing the electrical infrastructure, snakes remain a substantial issue affecting the integrity of the power system.
In 2021, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), supported by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs, began partnering with the Guam Power Authority to evaluate this problem more intensively. Initial work included efforts to characterize differences between power lines and substations with large numbers of snake-caused outages and those without them, determine the seasonality of outage events, and update the calculated costs of power outages on the modernized infrastructure.
Guam Power Authority line workers began collecting electrocuted snakes for USGS staff to assess the sizes, diets, and sexes of snakes responsible for outages. Additionally, USGS is collaborating with U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services to explore effective approaches to protecting this sensitive infrastructure from brown treesnakes.
Of all the economic impacts to Guam due to the introduction of the brown treesnake (Boiga irregularis), the effects on the power infrastructure are the easiest to understand.
Brown treesnakes climbing on Guam’s power infrastructure are responsible for hundreds of outages resulting in power loss to thousands of residents each year. The snakes have long bodies that are well-suited for connecting electrical circuits or bridging live wires, resulting in dangerous electrical surges that damage infrastructure and equipment. Although Guam has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars modernizing, protecting, and snake proofing the electrical infrastructure, snakes remain a substantial issue affecting the integrity of the power system.
In 2021, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), supported by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs, began partnering with the Guam Power Authority to evaluate this problem more intensively. Initial work included efforts to characterize differences between power lines and substations with large numbers of snake-caused outages and those without them, determine the seasonality of outage events, and update the calculated costs of power outages on the modernized infrastructure.
Guam Power Authority line workers began collecting electrocuted snakes for USGS staff to assess the sizes, diets, and sexes of snakes responsible for outages. Additionally, USGS is collaborating with U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services to explore effective approaches to protecting this sensitive infrastructure from brown treesnakes.