Engineer, who visited Elmhurst, says much damage preventable
By Dan McLeister
for The Independent

Hard hitting testimony has been given against Commonwealth Edison about the causes of storm damage in the summer of 2011 and the fact that some equipment dated back to the 1950s.

An electrical engineering expert witness for the Illinois Attorney General’s office said “This statement
(by ComEd people about outages not being the result of poor maintenance) is blatantly untrue.”

George Owens, an executive from a Salisbury, Md. Firm said in testimony filed late in January with the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) that each of the maintenance items and distribution upgrades which he noted were available to ComEd and “could have easily been applied by ComEd to its distribution system throughout the last twenty years.”

At the end of his forty nine pages of testimony, Owens recommended that the ICC open an investigation to determine the state of ComEd’s storm readiness and to produce a plan for “effective storm hardening investments.”

A finding against ComEd could mean that the utility should pay customers for some damages during the storms.

The ICC is giving ComEd time to reply and submit more testimony.

When asked by The Independent about comments or a press release, Maura Possley, deputy press secretary for the Office of the Illinois Attorney General, said there would be no comments by Lisa Madigan at this time

Owens’ field investigations (in Elmhurst and other communities) revealed a major lack of proven vegetation management (trimming of trees) and necessary system upgrades that if accomplished would have prevented a lot of the suffering experienced by ComEd customers.

Inspection of numerous alleys and most back property line areas revealed what he said were years of neglect of adequate vegetation management in the vicinity of overhead primary lines. Numerous areas revealed extensive envelopment of lines by trees.

Aged poles and transformers dating back to the 1950s were observed. Broken cross arms, leaning poles and split pole tops were also observed. He said that inadequate or non-existent fusing of branch tap lines were extensive. Overhead primaries have not been placed underground in areas obviously needing such action.

These problems and other ones contributed to the resulting need for more storm response manpower, more difficult reconnections and longer outages, according to Owens.

Industry-wide information and equipment to prevent the kind of storm damage experienced by Com Ed customers have been readily available to ComEd over the past twenty years. “ComEd chose instead to not take effective and consistent action.”

“This ultimately predictable outcome should have been readily apparent to ComEd planners and managers.” Owens noted that ComEd officials have tried to say that there was not a single underling root cause. “This is not true.”

The witness said the singular root cause for this very large number and very long duration of outages experienced by ComEd’s customers “is clear and evident neglect of its distribution facilities over the past twenty years.”

Owens did field investigations in the cities of Elmhurst, Evanston, Highland Park, Lake Forest, Park Ridge, Rockford, Rolling Meadows and the villages of Arlington Heights, Glenview, Morton Grove, Niles and Schaumburg. His testimony focused on three areas of concern: vegetation management, age of facilities and system modernization.

He was responding to a Petition of Waiver filed by ComEd to the ICC requesting that it be relieved of liability to its customers for damages resulting from certain type of outages. The company said “The resulting interruptions were not caused by any omissions or defects in ComEd’s distribution system, but were unpreventable consequences of the summer 2011 storms. ComEd could not reasonably and prudently have prevented this damage to its distribution systems.”

Owens stated “It is my professional opinion that service quality for its customers and distribution system reliability would have been dramatically better, and a significant portion of the outages could have been avoided or shortened in duration.

“Com Ed must adopt consistent and sufficient tree triming programs that conform to recognized national standards, state laws and utility best practices.”

ComEd officials have testified that the company’s entire electrical distribution system conformed to applicable national standards when the summer 2011 storms occurred.

Owens noted that the results of his field inspections contradict the testimony of ComEd witnesses. Numerous violations of electrical codes were observed in residential backyards including inadequate secondary service heights. “In some cases, a person or even a child could easily come in contact with overhead 240 volt service conductors by simply raising the handle of a garden rake.”