NYSEG Gets Slammed At New Lebanon Meeting
by Thaddeus Flint
As another year comes to a close in New Lebanon, the final Town Board meeting of 2016 ended on a different note than previous years. [private][/private]Instead of arguments and grumbling, Board members, residents, and members of the Fire Department wished each other Merry Christmas last Tuesday before they left into another snowy night.
The NYSEG company, however, received none of that joyousness.
A snow storm the weekend of November 20 was still on everyone’s minds. Many had been trapped in their homes without power for days while NYSEG slowly put the lines back up. The situation was so bad that Town Supervisor Colleen Teal made the decision to declare a State of Emergency.
“There was no coordination,” said Teal of the NYSEG’s attempts to restore power. On some roads, NYSEG trucks waited for plows to come before they would move in to restore power. However, the plows were also waiting for the lines to be cleared before they could plow the roads. All the while, many residents― “more than a third” at one point, said Teal—waited and wondered why this was all taking so long.
Fire Chief Ben Wheeler pointed out that this is what happens when your local power company is owned by an energy giant in Europe. NYSEG is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Avangrid, which is a subsidiary of a Spanish company called Iberdrola. Iberdrola managers in Spain might have a hard time finding New Lebanon on a map. And why bother? It’s a multi-national corporation that answers to its stockholders first before some family watching their pipes freeze up on a tiny back road in Columbia County, New York.
Which is not to say that the NYSEG linemen weren’t doing anything but the best they could with the situation they were faced with.
“The linemen out there were doing a wonderful job in the worst conditions,” said Teal. “It was the coordination.”
“You don’t have local linemen anymore that know what’s going on,” said Highway Superintendent Jeff Winestock. “Times are changing.”
Apparently stockholders like it if their company hires less people that they have to pay. Why have local linemen if you can just ship them in from someplace that currently doesn’t need linemen? And so the linemen trying to restore power to New Lebanon, Stephentown, and other municipalities hard hit by the storm were faced with towns many had never seen before now buried in snowbanks.
Many of the lines down were caused by trees and limbs falling on lines because they had never been trimmed back in the first place. Residents reported seeing tree trimmers this past summer and fall, but the tree trimmers are also often trucked in from such foreign places as Syracuse and they frequently don’t venture too far from the road. The low lying fruit they get – plant an apple tree within 20 feet of a power line and NYSEG will happily have a team trucked right out from Rochester to pulp the offensive sapling in your front yard. But the more difficult tree work out away from the roads often goes untouched.
What to do?
Wheeler advised residents to document their problems and then file complaints with the New York State Department of Public Service.
“They are going to be your voice,” said the Fire Chief.
The Highway Superintendent advised residents to learn from such events. “We are all adults here,” he said. People should realize that this kind of weather is going to happen, and is going to cause electrical outages, sometimes even for days. So if you want to live in a rural wooded town whose electrical supply is controlled out of a glass tower in Bilbao, Spain, you might want to plan ahead. Get a backup generator, advised Winestock, and better yet, don’t have all your appliances run off of electricity to begin with.
A Chance Of
Better Internet
Another utility, FairPoint, also came up in discussion, but with a more hopeful outlook. According to Teal, FairPoint, is looking to secure a New York State grant to provide fiber to residents who are currently “unserved and underserved” with broadband internet.
Internet providers have a long history of taking public money and then not doing anything for the public with it, so few will have their hopes set too high at this announcement. If it does work out though, Teal said that while there will still be some “pockets and holes” in the Town’s internet coverage, “it really will make a difference.”
The “pockets and holes” people will also not be forgotten, said the Supervisor. “My goal is to make sure even those pockets are filled.”
The Supervisor is also working to make sure that the Town’s elderly residents are well represented. New Lebanon’s previous representative to the Columbia Council Office for the Aging Council, Phyllis Hubert, tendered her resignation last month for personal reasons. The role will now be taken on by both Judy Zimmer-Sabri and JJ Johnson Smith. Teal’s appointments were voted on with all in favor. Someone in the audience noted that it “takes two to replace one Phyllis.”
Ancient Forests
The night began with a presentation by members of the Conservation Advisory Council (CAC) on the progress so far of their Natural Resources Inventory Project. The CAC has been investigating and mapping intermittent streams and woodland pools, as well as “ancient forests,” which are those over 70 years old.
“Seventy years!” said Planning Board member Robert Smith. “That’s not ancient to me!”
However, for a Town that was at one time largely deforested, finding groups of trees that old or older is a job in itself. The CAC and student volunteers from the Darrow School have put in a total of 359 hours of work as of September 30. In doing so they have inspected some 2,000 acres of land in New Lebanon, which is about 10% of the total acreage in the Town.
The CAC also inherited a second project which mapped what are called the View Sheds of the New Lebanon. These are scenic viewing points open to the public which are seen as Town resources for the natural beauty. The Town’s attorney, Stephanie Ferradino, noted that these View Sheds would be important in determining where future solar farms might or might not be located as New Lebanon works toward future zoning of such solar arrays.
The night ended with Town Clerk Tistrya Houghtling thanking those in the community who had taken part in the Gift Drive and making the holidays “magical” for those families who might not have the means to do so on their own. [/private]