Democrat: Alfred M. Anthony and Michael M. Silverman
Republican:  Charles L. Granata and Ray Leibman

My question for the four candidates is the following:

The top priorities of local government are safety, infrastructure and education.  In January 2012, 388 residents and small businesses in Livingston and East Hanover had their homes spiked by 140 volts of high voltage for over an hour by JCP&L in the middle of the night.  NJ regulations call for no more than 5% plus or minus over 120 volts for no more than 5 minutes. This was 22.55% above standard voltage delivered for over an hour.  As a result, electrical outlets melted and burnt, fires started from TV cable boxes and the average home lost as much as $940 in electronics and appliances.  Some as high as $5000. Margarita’s (now out of business) lost $8,500 in equipment.  Total loss estimates are over $400,000.  JCP&L took claims initially and then denied them all.

Residents lost computers, washing machines, security systems, garage door openers, DVRs, and other electronics. More important than the property damage, many families are worried that this could happen again and put their family’s safety at risk while away from their homes or worse while sleeping.

The Livingston Town Council under its current leadership had one simple, no-cost thing to do, and failed to do anything in the months after this incident. The Town could simply have asked the NJ Board of Public Utilities (BPU) to hold a hearing. This would have provided a forum for asking questions, holding JCP&L accountable and requesting an investigation to generate recommendations for JCP&L. There are numerous things JCP&L could have done to prevent the extent of the damage and reduce the risk to customers; including inspecting power station lines, self-monitoring of their voltage output versus relying on customer calls, cutting power immediately when learning about the excess voltage, and better response procedures such as notifying customers as soon as it happened with directions on what to do to protect their homes and property.

After a number prompts from residents to the current Mayor and Town Council, they took no action at all.  The response I received from Mayor Santola was that BPU has shown historically to be ineffective, and they believed it would be fruitless to ask them to look into it.   Yet just last year, BPU produced a detail Special Masters report for Morristown with over 25 safety and operational recommendations – all of which are now being put into place.

Those members elected to Town Council should care for our residents. If residents are damaged or have their lives put at risk to no fault of their own, I cannot image a higher priority for our local government, yet our current Town Council did nothing.  All they had to do was ask BPU for a hearing. 

So my question to the each of the candidates is:  If you take office, what actions will you take going forward to ensure better reliability and safe procedures are adhered to by both JC&PL and PSE&G, as well as other 3rd parties providing services to the town?  What action would you still take around the Jan 30, 2012 incident from JCP&L?  (It’s not too to follow up!)

About the election:
http://livingston.patch.com/articles/four-man-race-for-township-council#comments_list

http://www.livingstonnavigator.com/profiles/blogs/incumbent-councilmen-decline-to-run-silverman-and-anthony-will-se

http://thealternativepress.com/towns/livingston/sections/elections/articles/democrats-silverman-anthony-seeking-seats-on-liv

The surge coming into homes manifested itself in several different ways.

Residents experienced one or more of this occurrences:
- burnt outlets and surge protectors
- smoking cable box
- the smell of burning plastic through out the house
- broken appliances; everything from flourescent lights, security systems, washing machines, integrated house cleaners, furnaces motors, etc.

Damage claims, while minor for some – are in the thousands of dollars for many others.  While JCPL took damage claims, three weeks later, they were still investigating the cause.  Four weeks latter on Feb 28th, JCPL issued the following response letter to residents who submitted claims. Unfortunately, many residents also have not filed damage claims yet, and are waiting for their file cost and receipts to be collected. PLEASE if you have suffered any damage file your damage claim with JCP&L now. I don’t think anyone has an idea of the extent of the damage yet since many homeowner’s are either waiting on their final cost to file or have instead filed with their insurance.

The basis for JCP&L’s claim response letter is flawed in a number of ways:

1.  Customers First or Last in FirstEnergy’s eyes?  It seems First Energy \ JCPL made the financial decision to not process claims, and is betting that many residents will just get what they can from their insurance and then “go away” quietly.  Unfortunately, many of us have $500 or $1000 deductibles we will need to incur that cost. If nothing else, residents should ask their homeowner’s insurance company to subrogation the claim to JCPL. (Learn more here…)

In addition, The Town of Livingston sent out a letter recommending that impacted residents hire an electrician to check out their service panels. JCP&L Customer Service relayed a similar message to residents calling up after the surge. This is another $100-$200 customers are incurring to check for and resolve potential damaged caused by JCP&L.

Residents are only looking for JCP&L to do what is right by their customers and be accountable for the damage that JCP&L caused.  No one is looking for malice or negligence.  The lawyers and number-crunchers provided poor guidance on this to JCP&L Management.  In the end, the time and cost for JCP&L staffers to handle one-off disputes, insurance subrogations, 3rd party investigations, commission hearings, press damage control, etc. will greatly exceed the total amount of the initial claims submitted.  Rather than solely worry about their financial liability, JCP&L should have done what’s right, showed care and concern for their customers, and made customer service their first priorty.

2. Were events normal or abnormal?  On the cause of the incident, JCP&L in their letter claims “no maintenance or operational abnormalities were identified”.  We know a conductor burnt out at the Okner Parkway substation. Ok, so maybe a conductor or transformer burning out is normal.  Does this happen by itself?  Was it old?  When was it last maintained? Shoudl these things be inspected and replaced regulary?  Even everything that happened was type wear and tear, and items were within more age for proper service, should a equipment failure cause tis type of power surge into our homes? Of course not! Conductors and transformers go all the time. We’ve seen them set on fire by lighting, Irene and the Ocotober storm. But they don’t create this kind of damaging surge getting sent back into homes where outlets and appliances get set on fire.  There were of course operational abnormalties.  Why is power allowed to be restored if the neutral line to calaibrate the amount of electricity into homes is not fully operational?  Why is there not sufficient surge capability built into the system between power substations and our homes?

Click here to add your name to our list of impacted homes

3.  Financial accountability and responsbility (forget liability!)  To the heart of JCP&L’s legal case denying responsiblity, they base it on the terms of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities Tariff terms; that as long as no negligence or willful misconduct is found,  they are free from any damage the Service causes inside the home.  This is why JCP&L is so focused on investigating and clearing themselves of negligence or willful misconduct.  The problem with this logic however is that “Service” as it is referenced in this liability waiver assumes that high quality, regualted, safe and reliable power is being delivered by the power company to our homes. This is NOT what JCP&L delivered on January 30th.  They delivered a dangerous power surge that set homes and appliances on fire.  This is not providing the “Service” the power copmany is being paid for and expected to be providing by any regulatory standards.  This Tariff’s liability waiver in the absence of negligence or misconduct assumes safe and reliable “Service” is being provided to homes. In this case, it was not. Sending unregulated power down the lines to homes other than safe and reliable, regulated, usable, non-damaging power is certainly not what anyone would deem as successful delivery of the intended “Service”.

If it happened to one house, you could possibly make a case that something could have happened with faulty wiring or breakers, or mis-use of the power inside the home  by the consumer – once the power was delivered. But in this case, it happened to hundreds of homes. This had nothing to do with faulty wiring or breakers or how consumers were using the power inside their homes, but rather what JCP&L delivered to those homes from the outside.  It is basically no different than someone from JCP&L driving one of their trucks through your living room wall, and then claiming no responsiblity since the damage occurred inside your home.  The Service delivered was not what was paid for nor expected, and JCP&L is blatantly at fault and should take responsbility for the damage.

JCP&L indicates the cause had something to do with a conductor failure that terminated power and resulted in a owerline voltage differential. It is not clear whether the voltage occurred when the power failed or when it was restored.  But regardless of how it failed or how it was restored, the power coming to our homes should always be a calibrated amount of voltage and systemic protections should be in place to prevent unregulated amounts of voltage from being delivered. 

Again, it doesn’t need to be based on negligence or misconduct. Certain safeguards in the system could have been missing or are maybe not sufficent. Maybe the capacity of surge protection in the system between the power station and  our homes needs to be enhanced above what regulations required. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe failed equipment. Maybe the cause is still unknown. Regardless of cause, dirty unregulatory energy was sent unexpectingly into homes setting them on fire, burning out circuits and appliances.  JCP&L caused this damage; regardless of absence malice or any bad intent. And as such should say “We’re sorry. We are so glad no one got hurt. We’re going to take extra measures to safeguard your homes and from this happening again in the future, and of course, we are going to pay for all the damage!”

With just some basic research, this is at least the third time this has happened in NJ by JCP&L since 2009.  At least in one of the other instances, JCP&L shielded itself behind the same lame Tariff clause from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities.  See Press Articles.

In some cases, damage can sometimes be foreseeable and avoidable. In the case where this happened to a single home in Allamuchy in 2009, the field technicans could easily have check edthe neutral line to the house (which was damaged – preventing normal power calibration). Why is checking the neutral line not part of standard operating procedure prior to restoring power?  But even if there are instances where damage is not preventable, JCP&L should still be accoutability. This is simply part of the cost of them doing business – based on the business they are in. To hold then accountability in no way, allows them to have no incentive to ever improve procedures or equiptment – like manually checking neutral lines prior to restoring power – or in the case of Livingston\East Hanover, configuring the system to prevent automatic restoration prior to neutral line operations being verified.  (I think we’d all rather have the power go off to two hours, let the neutral lines be manually checked and then having power restored – versus having all our homes damaged.)   Or implementing systemic surge protection into the system – even if this is an expenditure above and beyond what is consider “required” standard operating equipment. 

We need to compel both the NJ Board of Public Utilities, the Governor’s Office and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to force utilities like First Energy\JCP&L to be accountability for damage caused by their service – especially when no natural events like a storm, wind, lightning or trees caused and especially when homeowner’s did nothing wrong inside their homes to create the situation.

4. Communication of Cause and Corrective Measures. Lastly, the letter from JCP&L mentions nothing about the cause of the incident and what is going to be done to help prevent it from recurring in the future.  We should all be able to sleep at night, go to work or go away on vacation without worrying the electric company might set our houses on fire.

First Energy \ JCP&L should be counting its lucky stars that no homes burned down and no one was hurt.  Are we all going to continue to get the “safe and reliable” Service we are paying for, or an unregulated power surge - that next time might burn down one of our homes or hurt someone.  It’s way too easy to say “nothing was wrong” and “don’t worry it won’t happen again”.  That’s exactly how it happens again.  The time to care is now. Not after it’s too late.

Let’s all press for some solid answers as to the cause. Even if JCP&L is doing everything perfectly right and up to standards, may be additional equipment monitoring, aging replacement or increase surge capacity between the power substation and our homes will prevent it next time equipment fails. Equipment failure should not cause this. Let’s press for answers, and ask our regulatory boards and JCP&L what else can JCP&L do to better safeguard our homes.

In addition, power companies should NOT be able to shield themselves from liability or accountability behind the NJ Tariff clause. I have to believe the intent of this clause was to remove liability from power companies for what happens inside the house in terms of damage from faulting wiring, breakers or power mis-use.  I cannot believe its intent was to allow the power company to do anything it wants – and not be responsible for the quality and calibration of the Service delivered to the outside of our homes.

PLEASE if you are an affected resident from this incident, sign up to help our regulatory boards to give this issue the attention it desires.  Don’t let this be swept away without explanation or correction action.

We have three goals:
1. Holding JCP&L accountable financially for the damage. (Tens of insurance companies should not have to bear this burden, and then pass that onto homeowner’s through high premiums.)
2. Learning what was the cause, and having this clearly communicated to residents.
3. Understanding preventive procedures and\or equipment are being put in place to prevent it from happening in the future. We need a 100% guarantee what is in place will not allow this to happen to an entire grouping of homes in the future. Even if a neutral line goes down by weather, power should not be restored until it is replaced. In our case, the power substation stopped using the neutral ine, but continued to send out power. This should NOT be allowed to happen.

Click here to add your name to our list of impacted homes