House Majority Leader Kumar Barve (D-17) has called on the Public Service Commission (PSC) to examine why Montgomery County suffered disproportionate power outages during the recent blizzards. Barve cited the experience of his 83-year-old mother, who had to be evacuated to Virginia, and noted the much lower rates of outage in neighboring jurisdictions. We reprint Barve's press release and his letter to the PSC below.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
February 25, 2010
CONTACT:
Mary Scholl
301 858 3464
410 841 3464
BARVE CALLS ON PSC TO TACKLE MONTGOMERY’S MASSIVE OUTAGE PROBLEMS
Annapolis – Majority Leader Kumar Barve has asked the Public Service Commission to determine what actions are needed to prevent a repeat of the massive numbers of electric outages that took place in Montgomery County during the recent storms.
In a letter to Chairman Douglas Nazarian, Del. Barve expressed concern about the enormous number of outages in the county, especially when compared with neighboring jurisdictions. PEPCO outages cited in the Washington Post as of 10 PM the Saturday night after the first storm included 78,000 in Montgomery County, 7,700 in Prince George’s County and 2,200 in the District. Baltimore Gas and Electric said about 11,000 customers in Prince George’s, Howard and Anne Arundel were without power at that time.
“The storm did not stop at the county line,” said Del. Barve. “We need to look at what other counties are doing and copy them because we cannot afford to put so many of Montgomery’s residents in harm’s way. Public safety issues of this magnitude must be immediately addressed.”
One problem cited by Del. Barve was the enormous number of trees planted by the county directly under neighborhood power lines that have been allowed to grow over and around the utility wires.
“The prior policy of pruning county trees on a regular basis was changed and many neighborhoods now have trees crisscrossing utility lines,” continued Del. Barve. “While I don’t know if there were other contributing factors to Montgomery’s loss of power, I know that when you have 1000 lines down, a major tree trimming effort must become a top priority.”
“The good news is that there are many jurisdictions with an excellent track record of protecting their electric infrastructure in adverse weather conditions. If everyone works together, there is no reason why we can’t do the same.”
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Following is Barve's letter to the PSC.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Barve Calls for Examination of MoCo Power Outages
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8 comments:
I seems to me we have had a Montgomery County Power Outage in dealing with the holdup ICCm tolls which are 4 times higher than the Dulles Toll Road tolls. Robin Ficker
Yes!!! Go guy! You THE MAN!!!
John Cooper-Martin
The Montgomery County Council plans to do an after-the-storm wrap-up that will include County DOT, State DOT, Comcast, Verizon and PEPCO. Look for an announcement from us about this briefing in the next couple of days.
County Councilchair Floreen,
From the communication that I have seen and heard from the County, so far, it has all been very positive toward the County Council and Executive, every County and State agency, every company, the County, touting good work by the elected officials, agencies, companies, and the County. Frankly, that is really getting old. From my experience, and those of many others, this was not, at all, the case. I am an ardent Democrat, so this is not a political axe, I am trying to grind, as are all the members of the County Council are Democrats. However, I am troubled by what happened with this situation, and I am wondering:
1. Why has the County been touting cooperation and excellence, when cooperation and excellence when it were not evident to many of the County's residents?
2. Is this announcement going to be more of the same -- that you, our elected County officials, did an outstanding job in facilitating cooperation and excellence between the County and these companies and agencies, to try to make you look good to us voters, when, in truth, there was not good cooperation nor excellence?
3. Are you, as our elected County officials going to "come clean" on this situation and face the truth, that there was not good cooperation and excellence, on this situation, so this does not repeat itself, in the future, as Delegate Barve's letter to the Public Service Commission correctly addresses and rightly asks for steps to be taken to ensure that this situation does not repeat itself? Or is this announcement/briefing going to be another "whitewash" of the problem to try to make you, as elected County officials, look good?
I hope, for our County residents' sake, not.
John Cooper-Martin
Why is Robin Ficker so upset about the ICC tolls? I would think an anti-tax guy like him would be all in favor of user fees -- after all, the road won't pay for itself, and if it doesn't come out of toll revenue it has to be paid for with tax dollars.
I have scheduled a wrap up so councilmembers can ask questions and be briefed on how the blizzard and outages were handled. If you have questions, please, send them to me or other councilmembers so we can get them answered. I'll also arrange to have this televised so you can follow along. The video of our December storm snow plowing review is on our council website.
Nancy
Casey, I'm not anti-tax, just anti the big tax increases that Nancy Floreen and Mike Knapp have and are still trying to give us. They gave us the largest property tax increase in a generation and have laerge property and gasoline tax increases planned for us right after the election.
The Power Outage is for transportation funding which Nancy oversees. We don't see confiscatory tolls imposed on I-97 in Howard and Anne Arundel counties. No, only here in Montgomery County, where officials are proud to use homeowners as an ATM. We should be using more than 6% of the state sales tax, which was just increased 20%, for transportation. We should be using slots money for transportation. But the plan of our powerless officials is not to fight for funding now, but to impose tax hikes after the election. Robin Ficker
To Councilchair Floreen:
You wrote that if I have questions about how the snow storm and outages were handled for me to send in questions to the Council. Here, I just asked you three questions, but you did not answer any of them. So, if you did not answer my questions, here, then why should I believe that you are going to answer them, at the "wrap-up?" Also, what is the “wrap-up” going to be about, and how will we know, when this "wrap-up" is going to be televised?
I looked on the County's website, as you wrote, about the snow plowing review. From your reply, to my comment, and referring me to the snow plowing review, I think you fail to understand what Majority Leader Barve's letter entailed. He wrote to the Public Service Commission stating that Montgomery County had a disproportionate amount of power outages, compared to other areas in Maryland, and he questioned why. He also wanted to know what steps were being taken, in the future, so this situation would not be repeated. Nowhere, do I see that being addressed by the County Council. What I have seen is how well the County did in handling the snow situation, but I and many other County citizens experienced the situation differently, and this is not being addressed. I hope you and the County Council will come to understand that there is some anger about what many perceive as mishandling of the situation, and we wonder why that is not being addressed and what steps are going to be taken so it will not happen in the future.
To Robin Ficker:
I suppose your comment about the Power Outage we had, in Montgomery County related to the I.C.C. tolls was supposed to be humorous, yet passive-aggressively, complain about the I.C.C. tolls and the County Council's taxation policies. To me, however, your comment was disrespectful to the thousands of people, in the County, especially older senior citizens, as Majority Leader Barve wrote in his letter to the Public Service Commission, who were without power and could not travel from their homes, because their roads had not been plowed, which caused a very dangerous and possibly deadly situation for them.
John Cooper-Martin
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