The Times Record will soon be publishing the usual poststorm letters regarding Central Maine Power’s failure to restore service in a timely manner, or praising the “heroes” that righted “an act of God or Nature.”

You have storms, so you’ll have power outages. Power outages, however, are not acts of nature. They are failures of service by a utility because its choice of power conveyance is inadequate during acts of nature.

Outages routinely occur because, sadly, it is best for CMP’s bottom line. That situation continues to be acceptable to the Maine Public Utilities Commission, which is mandated to protect the rate payer, because it is convinced that to remedy the situation would increase consumers’ costs.

CMP’s after-taxes profits for 2009 were $44 million, an increase in profit from 9 percent to 11 percent, according to financial reports posted on the company’s website.

The PUC allowed that increase because CMP put in place a five-year trim cycle, 20 percent of total cutback annually.

This tree-pruning program will cost rate payers $23 million per year, plus inflation, forever. Despite this, millions more are spent after each storm to restore power.

Trees aside, wind or freezing rain alone can down power lines. All the limb trimming in the world couldn’t prevent massive outages last year when weather just ripped trees out of the ground, downing lines — or when winds leveled antiquated utility poles that simply snapped from excessive age.

The PUC allows these costs to be passed on to the rate payer, so the utility has no incentive to seek a solution that works well elsewhere: Putting power lines underground.

CMP says they see no need to discontinue use of aboveground conveyance at any time in the future. CMP says it sees no reason to change anything, expecting utility pole usage indefinitely.

Gas and water lines are underground and still, somehow, affordable and doable.

Electric companies continue with wires strung on poles because it is cheap, but cheap only in that they are permitted to pass costs onto the rate payers. If those operating costs were on their meter, rather than ours, they would start putting lines underground tomorrow.

Each year, Maine’s citizens suffer frequent, and often prolonged, power outages. This is very costly. Loss of business, loss of perishables, lost man hours, lost wages, all hurt the economy.

Lives and property are lost to improper attempts to heat homes. The elderly, in particular, suffer. Like so much with government, the PUC seems to function at the behest of big business rather than by its real mandate.

The rate payer has already paid enough in deferring this problem. I am hoping that people will see that putting delivery underground will eventually reduce the cost of electricity — and immediately improve reliability — something that the Legislature has already mandated the PUC to be vigilant about and thereby should support such change if enlightened by voters.

After the ice storm of 2008, a divided PUC commission made CMP, in a rare exception, pick up 30 percent of the cleanup cost, citing that CMP hadn’t done enough prior tree maintenance. That precedent should be utilized.

The PUC should direct CMP to shoulder more, and eventually all, of such costs. Underground conveyance would then become increasingly attractive to them, as a way of saving money.

Everyone agrees that the delivery of electrical power in Maine could be improved, that it is unreliable, unattractive and costly. If the PUC, directed by the Legislature, was to shift the cost of line maintenance to the utility, a sea change could occur. The shift itself could be amortized.

How much, if any, of a rate increase would, or should, be part of that shift of costs is a separate debate.

CMP would then be motivated to avoid the enormous cost of repeated tree trimming and seasonal storm damage. That avoidance, which will never occur under the current arrangement, would eventually free countless millions of dollars to be better spent elsewhere, to everyone’s benefit.

Indeed, in the real world, a business passes such operating costs onto the customer, as long as it can remain competitive. In CMP’s world, there is essentially no business competition, which is why the change must occur from the PUC.

The people of Maine have every right to demand more responsible utility service. CMP will not assume such responsibility on its own initiative.

Utility poles may have been fine at electric power’s inception — England went directly to underground transport — but how long are we to continue conveying power with lines suspended in the air? Will the end of this century find us still no further along, and if not, when will we begin the task of getting lines underground?

I suggest the time is now.

Whenever I voice these concerns, I have encountered broad agreement that something needs to be done. If you are like minded, partly or fully, call your state representatives.

“Maine, The Way Life Should Be” or “Open For Business.” Why does it have to be a choice?

GARY ANDERSON lives in Bath.