Generator plan divides town council

As published in the Record Journal, Wednesday January 23, 2013

By Russell Blair
Record-Journal staff
rblair@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2225
Twitter:@RussellBlairRJ

WALLINGFORD - A discussion about purchasing generators to power the town’s high schools for use as shelters during widespread power outages broke down into a partisan debate at Tuesday’s Town Council meeting.

Democrat Jason Zandri proposed forming an “Emergency and Alternative Power Review Committee” to investigate options to power the two schools, or other town-owned facilities, for use as shelters. The town has just one shelter with generator power: the old Cook Hill Volunteer Fire Station, which can hold 40 people.

“Our emergency operations plan is not set up to accommodate a large number of residents,” said Democratic Councilor John Sullivan.

But Mayor William W. Dickinson Jr. said the chances of the town experiencing massive outages were slim. He said the town would likely be able to restore power to a school quickly for use as a shelter.

“The chance we would not be able to energize one of the schools is virtually impossible,” Dickinson said. “The chance of us being completely out is remote.”

After about 45 minutes of discussion between councilors, Dickinson and Emergency Management Director Ernest Frattini, Republican Councilor Thomas Laffin made a motion to call the question to a vote. According to Robert’s Rules of Order, any member of a body that operates under the rules can make such a motion, effectively ceasing debate and putting the issue to a vote if two-thirds of the body agrees.

Laffin said town staff were already undertaking many of the duties that the committee Zandri proposed would be tasked with. “I don’t want to waste another hour talking about something that’s already been done,” Laffin said.

The motion to call Zandri’s proposal to a vote passed 6-3 along party lines, with Democrats, including Zandri, saying they hadn’t been given an opportunity to fully speak on the matter. Democrat Nicholas Economopoulos said the Republican majority was stifling debate, pointing to a member of the public who had approached the microphone, wishing to weigh in.

“We’re not stifling anyone,” said Republican Chairman Robert Parisi. “We live by rules.”

Zandri said he was upset because he had cut his initial comments short to let other councilors weigh in and believed he would have another chance to speak.

“I’m never going to give up my right to speak at this table again,” he said.

In other business, the council approved a two-year contract for management employees across all town departments, with a 1.75 percent pay increase in the first year and a renegotiation on wages in the second year. The total cost of the raises, which cover about 75 employees, will be $35,000 this year, said Personnel Director Terence Sullivan.

Zandri’s lamppost probe cut short

As published in the Record Journal Friday December 7, 2012

By Laurie Rich Salerno
Record-Journal staff
lsalerno@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2235
Twitter:@LaurieSalernoRJ

WALLINGFORD — Town Councilor Jason Zandri, a Democratic mayoral candidate, said he would drop his inquest into the Electric Department’s recent scrapping of 39 ornamental lampposts after this week’s memorandum from Town Attorney Gerald Farrell Sr. Farrell wrote that the disposal did not violate town ordinances.

“There’s no point in continuing this effort. There’s nothing more to be gained. There’s no way to go back and undo it,”Zandri said, adding that he did not believe Farrell’s report addressed the issue he brought up, but that he didn’t want to pursue a “witch hunt.”

Zandri said though he was abandoning the issue for the moment, he would keep a close eye on how departments dispose of assets.

Farrell’s memorandum was dated Dec. 3 and sent to Zandri, the Town Council and Mayor William W. Dickinson this week in response to Zandri’s request at a Nov. 27 council meeting for a review of how the town’s Electric Division disposed of 39 20-plus-year old ornamental lampposts.

The division sent the old lampposts to a scrap metal dealer with which it has a contract after replacing them with newer poles.

Zandri has said he believes that proper disposal procedure was not followed, and that the poles could have been sold intact for a significantly higher price than the less than $2,000 received by scrapping them. The town has disputed both claims.

In the memorandum, Farrell says the Electric Division did not notify the Purchasing Department before getting rid of the lampposts, but reported afterward that that they had been scrapped. He said that was in line with rules in the Town Charter and in the Purchasing Department.

Farrell cited the Town Charter, which says the purchasing agent has the duty to transfer or sell town assets that are “surplus, obsolete or unused,” with the approval of the mayor. But Farrell indicated that the light poles are none of these, instead saying they are “nonfunctioning equipment,” which “would not fall within these categories.“ He goes on to call the items scrap and lists the town’s purchasing ordinance references for “obsolete, worn out or scrapped” items, which allows the department to simply report items they’ve scrapped, but not field requests for disposal through the Purchasing Department.

But Zandri takes issue with the lights being depicted as “non-functioning” as they were working on the streets before being replaced this fall. The Electric Division characterized the poles as having deteriorating electrical connections, being unsafe to work on, and having bases that had been damaged, but did say they were operational prior to being removed.

“The ruling basically defined what could be done with scrap. It didn’t really answer my question of what should be done with ornamental streetlights,” Zandri said.

When asked about the nonfunctioning designation, Farrell said that the department believed they were scrap.

“In the opinion of the Director of Utilities they were scrap — part of what department heads have is the discretion,” to determine the state of their own materials, Farrell said. “Too often people put things on the surplus list that are total scrap and he wishes they would use more discretion in putting it as scrap — all these broken chairs, and no one really wants them.”

A presentation Zandri made at the Nov. 27 meeting listed the broken furniture from various departments that had made its way onto the town’s surplus list, saying he was surprised that if broken chairs were listed as viable assets to be sold by the town, that working lampposts were not.

Democratic Councilor Nick Econompoulos also took issue Thursday with the designation of the lights as non-functioning.

“The lawyer who is an officer of the court is telling us that the lights are not functional when we’ve already been told by (Public Utilities Director George) Adair that they were functioning,” Econompoulos said. He said that little stock should be put into the opinion on an issue where the town could be in the wrong, by an attorney employed by the town.

Republican Councilor Vincent Cervoni disagreed.

“I think it was pretty soundly written. I think it takes into account all the facts and the reality,” Cervoni said. “I think there’s a bit of an acknowledgement that the entire process wasn’t’ followed perfectly. I think in the end the process was ratified.”

Report will explore creation of municipal utilities

As published in the Record Journal Tuesday November 27, 2012

By Russell Blair
Record-Journal staff
rblair@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2225
Twitter:@RussellBlairRJ

WALLINGFORD — Time and again the town-owned Electric Division has outperformed larger utility companies when it comes to limiting outages during storms and restoring power afterward, and state legislators have taken notice.

At the request of lawmakers, the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority will issue a report by Jan. 1 examining the procedures for creating and expanding municipal electric utilities in the state. In addition to Wallingford, six other cities and towns run their own electric companies.

“We will put everything on the table, what communities would need if they want to start their own utility,” said Rep. Laura Hoydick, the ranking House Republican on the legislature’s Energy and Technology Committee.

Wallingford and other municipal utilities have developed a reputation for keeping the lights on during storms that knock power out in neighboring towns for days. Democratic state Rep. Mary G. Fritz, who represents the 90th House District, said the Cheshire portion of her district loses power at a higher clip than the part of Wallingford she represents.

“I think it’s a good idea,” she said of the report. “I think people feel a strong support for their electric division when they are working directly for them.”

Public Utilities Director George Adair attributes the Electric Division’s success to a consistent tree-trimming program and the type of wires the department has in place. The division uses a wire that is “more tolerant of incidental contact,” he said.

“Having said that, we’re not infallible,” Adair said in an interview earlier this year. “I don’t ever want to create a sense of infallibility. A major storm will produce power outages,” he said. A serious hurricane that brings down trees would be an issue, he said.

The state’s two largest electric utilities, Connecticut Light & Power and United Illuminating, have concerns about expanding or creating new municipal electric divisions. UI representatives said expansion would be costly and complex.

“Municipalities would need to raise billions of dollars, in aggregate, to pay fair market value to acquire electric distribution company systems,” the company said in testimony before the Energy and Technology Committee. “This would burden, or overburden, the available bonding authority of municipalities and mean tax increases to the resident-customers.”

Costs were substantially lower when the Wallingford Electric Division was launched in 1899. Startup costs were $50,000, or about $1.3 million in today’s dollars. While the major utility companies pay taxes on the infrastructure they own in towns, municipal utilities return a portion of their proceeds to town budgets.

Stephen Gilbelli — associate general counsel of Northeast Utilities, CL&P’s parent company — said a municipality acquiring the electrical infrastructure within its borders could disrupt service to other towns.

“Utility facilities do not end at each municipality’s border,” he said in testimony. “A distribution system is composed of an elaborate, intertwined electric grid that serves the entire state. Facilities in one town often are a critical piece of another town’s electric supply system.”

State Rep. Vincent J. Candelora, a Republican representing the 86th House District, said he hasn’t received a complaint about Wallingford Electric in his six years representing the district, which includes southeastern Wallingford, North Branford and portions of Durham and Guilford, but has had constituent concerns about other utilities. The district is serviced by Wallingford Electric, UI and CL&P.

Candelora admitted that it would take “significant capital investment” for new municipality utilities to be formed, but thinks it’s possible the current ones could expand their service areas. Regardless, Candelora said legislators want to learn more about the municipality utilities. “They did so well in storm response, it certainly made it easy for us to take a look at what they are doing and what the for-profit utilities are not doing,” he said.

Information from the Associated Press is included in this report.

State regulators look into expanding municipal utilities

As published in the Record Journal Friday November 23, 2012

By Stephen Singer

Associated Press

HARTFORD — For decades, conventional wisdom has held that when it comes to electric utilities, bigger is better. But after the widely criticized response to two major storms last year, Connecticut is exploring whether small, municipal utilities should take on more of the work done by investor- owned companies.

Regulators are drafting a report as required by the legislature to find out how towns and cities can establish or expand municipal utilities. The state’s largest utility, Connecticut Light & Power, was harshly criticized for restoring power too slowly after Hurricane Irene and the October 2011 snowstorm.

In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, CL&P and United Illuminating won approval from state officials for responding more quickly than last year. Still, a review of how to expand or establish municipal utilities is part of a broad response by the legislature and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy demanding greater oversight of utilities, better storm planning, quicker response and fines for performance failures.

“We will put everything on the table, what communities would need if they want to start their own utility,” said Rep. Laura Hoydick, the ranking House Republican on the legislature’s Energy and Technology Committee.

Seven municipal utilities operate in Connecticut: Bozrah, East Norwalk, Groton, Jewett, Norwich, South Norwalk and Wallingford. After last year’s storms, municipal utilities say power outages in their service areas were brief and limited. Their rates are comparable to the larger utilities.

The largest difference between the two sources of power, say supporters of municipal utilities, is that the local companies respond more quickly because they operate close to home and work with hometown emergency workers to keep systems running and restore power quickly.

The debate is the most recent in a fight over public vs. private ownership of power reaching back to the days of Thomas Edison, said Ashley Brown, executive director of the Harvard Electricity Policy Group, a think tank for electricity issues.

Investor-owned utilities began with Edison and municipal power was established as an alternative in the first decade of the 20th century, followed by New Deal public power projects to electrify rural America, he said.

“The fact is the debate has been there since the beginning of the industry,” Brown said.

In Connecticut, the intent now is to improve response time in emergencies.

At the peak of the outages last year’s autumn snowstorm, 830,000 CL&P customers — two-thirds of its customers — were without electricity. Many were in the dark for a week to 11 days.

During Hurricane Irene, 11,500 customers of Norwich Public Utilities — about half of the utility’s base — lost power at the peak of the outages, said spokesman Mike Hughes. The utility restored power to all its customers in three days, and half got it back on in one day, he said.

Hughes said quick restoration is the result of aggressive tree-trimming every four years and strong cooperation among all workers at Norwich’s gas, electric, water and wastewater departments.

“In an emergency, we’re kind of cross-trained,” he said. Hoydick credited a unified municipal approach to quick restoration of power.

“Police, fire and public works are in sync,” she said. “It’s part of the town infrastructure.”

Connecticut’s two large utilities see their industry differently. CL&P told utility regulators that big can be better.

“CL&P believes that there are certain ‘economies of scale’ present when a system is large enough to leverage the experience of its employees and employ sophisticated equipment to operate and maintain its system and spread the costs of operations among customers so that each customer’s share is smaller than it might otherwise be,” the utility said in comments to state regulators.

UI said municipalities would need to raise billions of dollars to pay fair market value for electric distribution systems, which could place too heavy a burden on a municipality’s bonding authority.

The utilities also say they pay state and local taxes and contribute to the state’s energy efficiency fund.

In response, municipal utilities note they return a portion of what they make to the town or city.

Brown said investor-owned utilities can advocate that large operations work more efficiently and municipal utilities can make the case that their operations are more nimble.

“There’s no pattern that defines them,” he said. “It’s a mixed bag.”

The high price for purchasing the assets of investor owned utilities such as equipment and property is among the biggest hurdles to municipal utilities seeking to expand.

“There’s a trend in the discussion,” he said. “Whether there’s a trend in doing anything is another issue.”

Zandri to town: Don’t be so quick to scrap

As published in the Record Journal Thursday November 15, 2012

By Laurie Rich Salerno
Record-Journal staff
lsalerno@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2235
Twitter:@LaurieSalernoRJ

WALLINGFORD - Town Councilor Jason Zandri, a Democrat, would like to see changes made in how town departments dispose of supplies. In a sometimes heated Town Council meeting Tuesday, Zandri pressed Mayor William W. Dickinson Jr., Comptroller Jim Bose and Public Utilities Director George Adair on the procedures followed.

He used the Electric Division’s recent replacement of 39 ornamental streetlights as an example. Zandri said the department sent the poles directly to a scrap metal dealer with which it has a standing contract rather than reselling them. He said that he believes that, under town ordinances, Adair should have gone to the mayor, comptroller or purchasing agent Sal Amadeo for resale opportunities before choosing to scrap them.

“I thought that the procedure in town was when any asset is to be retired in town it has to go through the Purchasing Department,” Zandri said.

Zandri quoted a town ordinance that says the town’s purchasing agent is required to, “with the approval of the mayor, to transfer to or between departments or agencies or to sell supplies and equipment determined, after consultation with the head of the department, office or agency concerned, to be surplus, obsolete, or unused.”

Adair said the items were not viable assets and did not need to go through that process.

“Given their status, I don’t view these old, taken-out-of-service streetlight posts as supplies, materials or equipment, nor do they really qualify as surplus obsolete or unused. They’re damaged, unsafe to maintain, undesirable and appropriately viewed as scrap,” Adair said. “I don’t think the question quite fits.”

Most of the 39 lights, installed in 1991 in a first wave of streetscaping, were operational, but Adair said they were valueless, with poor wiring and damage to the poles from general wear and tear and snowplows, and were made in a way that wiring at the base could only be accessed in a clumsy and sometimes dangerous fashion. Electric workers had to lift and hold the 50-pound base rather than simply take off a panel, which is the way the replacement streetlights are accessed. “You’re determining that these had no value, I’m just trying to figure out the procedure here. Is it the purview of the department?” Zandri asked, saying he still feels Amadeo should make that call according to the ordinance. And the ordinance should be changed if it’s not viable, he said.

Dickinson agreed.

“The purchasing office doesn’t’ have the expertise to determine a lot of things like that ... You have to rely on the department,” Dickinson said. “We’re talking about something that does not have a functioning value here. We could not do business if everything — all scrap that’s determined to be trash —has to first be discussed with the mayor and purchasing agent. It was never meant to be that.”

Bose acknowledged that there should be more of a paper trail to such discussions by department heads and the Purchasing Department. He said he knew there had been discussions between Adair and Amadeo, but they weren’t documented.

“It’s probably something we’re going to have to improve upon,” Bose said, saying would follow up with department heads. “There’s just got to be something to see if we can document about how we go about the process. ... It could just be a form; we’ll toss something around.” Zandri said Wednesday that he would continue his push to get the process codified, and was planning to move that council recommend the mayor formalize the procedure for these things around the rules in the charter,” Zandri said.

Steve Fontana Calls Out Opponent On False And Misleading Claims – 34th State Senate District Race

October 29, 2012
Steve Fontana Calls Out Opponent On False And Misleading Claims

Steve Fontana today called out his opponent, Len Fasano, for making false and misleading claims relating to Wallingford Electric in an effort to scare voters. “Len Fasano apparently has decided that his only chance of winning this election for State Senate is to make false and misleading claims about me,” Fontana said. “I don’t know how else to explain his decision, in a recent campaign mailing, to say something about me that he knows is simply not true.”

“His campaign mailer claims, without a shred of evidence, that I’ve taken some sort of position on Wallingford Electric’s autonomy. Len Fasano is simply wrong,” Fontana said. “I DO NOT support any changes in Wallingford Electric’s structure or governance and I’ve never said at any time that I do. I challenge Len Fasano to provide evidence to the contrary.”

“What’s more, people who've worked with me on energy issues, like State Representative Mary Mushinsky, know the truth: I think Wallingford Electric does an excellent job, should be independent and remain so,” Fontana added. “I’ve never made a statement otherwise and Len Fasano should know better.”

“By taking this route, Len Fasano has demonstrated an inability to be truthful with the voters at a critical juncture in this campaign, and I believe that they will take notice,” Fontana pointed out. “If you make claims in a campaign mailing that your opponent ‘wants’ or ‘believes’ something, you ought to be able to prove that he actually does. Len Fasano isn’t entitled to make claims about me by turning a position on one issue into a position on another issue. That’s just making stuff up in an effort to mislead voters before an election, and that’s exactly what Len
Fasano’s doing.”

Fontana concluded, “It’s too bad that Len Fasano’s campaign has sunken so low that he needs to make up things about me in an effort to scare people into voting for him. More than anything, voters want the facts on what we will do if they elect us, and we should be doing everything as candidates to provide them with those facts, rather than engage in last-minute scare tactics.”

Steve Fontana is running for State Senator for the 34th District, which includes all or part of the towns of Wallingford, East Haven, North Haven, and Durham. He served as North Haven’s State Representative from 1997 to 2011.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Call Steve Fontana at (203) 234-2240 for further information.

Scrapping light poles: Is it such a bright idea?

As published in the Record Journal Wednesday October 24, 2012

By Laurie Rich Salerno
Record-Journal staff
lsalerno@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2235
Twitter:@LaurieSalernoRJ

WALLINGFORD — The town is replacing 37 of its 160 ornamental streetlights and selling the used poles for scrap metal, but some town councilors believe the old poles could be reused.

The Electric Division has spent the last few weeks replacing what Public Utilities Director George Adair says are the oldest decorative aluminum light poles in town.

The lights were erected during streetscape projects over the last three decades, said Mayor William W. Dickinson, Jr. The earliest was in the late 1980s, the most recent in the early 2000s.

Adair said the poles being replaced are in poor shape, having taken a beating from snowplows and the elements over the years. They are also difficult to fix, he said. Their 50-pound aluminum bases need to be lifted every time workers need to get to the wiring inside.

“They were just a pain in the neck for maintenance,” Adair said.

The new streetlights have a panel at the bottom that can be removed so workers can more easily get to the wiring. The old lampposts are being disassembled and will go to scrap metal dealer Albert Brothers in Waterbury, with which the department has a standing contract, Adair said.

Town Councilor Craig Fishbein, whose law office is on South Main Street where poles have been replaced, said they look nice but he thinks the still-operational streetlights should be reused by the town.

“I guess it’s typical of government to take a working product and reduce it to scrap metal as opposed to recycling,” said Fishbein, a Republican.

Fishbein and fellow Town Councilor Nicholas Economopoulos, a Democrat, said they think the old poles should be placed around town, perhaps at the town-owned Wooding-Caplan site, which is set to be paved as a temporary parking lot.

“Since that’s supposed to be a temporary fix, why couldn’t we use those lights temporarily?“ Fishbein said.

Adair said the division wants the old poles out of circulation.

“We don’t consider them suitable. We do not want to perpetuate the use of them. ... We consider them truly to be scrap,” Adair said. “It’s not something we have interest in at all.”

The change, he said, will allow his workers to deal with streetlight problems more quickly.

Town Councilor John Le-Tourneau, a Republican, disagreed with his colleagues, saying restoring the poles might be more costly than replacing them. “It’s not just a matter of we’ll put them in storage and take them,” LeTourneau said. “When you reach into rehabbing something that’s been problematic anyhow, what’s your cost savings? At the end of the day it might just be cheaper to replace them with something that’s going to function better.”

Dickinson said the new streetlights do not have any specific energy-efficient technologies, such as LED lighting, which Fishbein said he’d like to see.

For ornamental lights, though, “there is not a LED product that the department has confidence in now,” Dickinson said. The new poles cost just more than $3,000 each, Adair said. Though the Electric Division is an enterprise fund, much of the funding for the new poles came from a yearly town allocation, Adair said, as approved by the town council in the fiscal year 2011-12 budget.

About the project, Dickinson said, “this grows out of the whole effort to ensure that the lights were on. It’s progress, we’re trying to make them better.”

Christopher Zajac courtesy of the Record-Journal

A new streetlight stands along South Main Street in Wallingford, one of 37 replacements scheduled.

Rate hikes in electricity, water and sewer bills on tap in Wallingford

As published online at MyRecordJournal.com

By Mary Ellen Godin
Record-Journal staff
mgodin@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2255

WALLINGFORD — Property owners can expect rate hikes in their electricity, water and sewer bills this summer to help pay for operational costs, wages and system improvements.

“We cannot continue to provide the level of services without this increase,” Mayor William W. Dickinson Jr. said Monday when revealing the town’s 2012-2013 budget.

Electric Division customers will see a 0.6 percent rate increase, which translates into about $1.63 per month for a homeowner using 750 kilowatt hours. The division is also hiring an energy conservation specialist and maintenance electrician.

The Electric Division’s operation expenses increased 0.9 percent. Capital expenses increased 3.9 percent to spend $3.5 million toward a five-year capital improvement plan.

Water customers can expect to see a 3.5 percent rate increase, from $3.21 to $3.34 per 100 cubic feet, that is expected to raise revenues by 6 percent. For the average customer who uses about 5,500 gallons per month, that’s a change of 95 cents per month or $2.86 per quarter, said George Adair, director of public utilities.

According to Dickinson, the increases include some contractual wage increases. The bulk of the $1.6 million capital improvement budget includes $849,306 for transmission and distribution, and water main work on five streets.

Sewer rates will climb 10.3 percent and are expected to increase revenues by 14.2 percent. For an average user of about 5,500 gallons of water per month, that translates to $4.29 per month or $12.87 per quarter. Operating expenses increased 4.1 percent but employee pay raises are not included in this year’s budget.

Roughly half of the increase, or $6.44 per quarter, is the first installment of three to help pay for a $350,000 study that looks at sources of inflow and infiltration into the wastewater treatment plant. If the town reaches more than 90 percent of the 8 million gallon capacity, it is required to do a facility study and the implied purpose is to upgrade or increase the capacity.

“Obviously that’s not good economy,” Adair said. “This is a series of rate changes approved last summer. This is the third in a series of four.”

A preliminary study done three years ago revealed problems with private hookups from a home tap, roof, foundation drain and/or sump pump.

“That’s the sort of unwanted extra flow,” Adair said. “The problem is coming from the private side. We want to address this, we’ve made some investment, sampled some typical basins to characterize the problem. We have a good knowledge of where they are. It’s a proactive approach. But we’re not unique at all.”

Electric users will see the increase in their July bills. Water and sewer increases will show up in June.

Town utilities are user-supported, not taxpayer subsidized, and any rate increase hurts residents during an anemic economy that has seen lost jobs, stagnant wages and rising costs, according to town councilors. But most of them agree they’re justified.

“We can say we don’t like them but if the increase is due to expenditures, there isn’t a lot we can do,” said Town Councilor Jason Zandri, a Democrat. “I did notice they made upgrades to the plants.”

Town Councilor Nicholas Economopoulos, also a Democrat, said rate increases hurt those in the community still facing uncertain times and those living on fixed incomes.

“This is a bad time to have one, with mill rate increases, utility increases,” Economopoulos said. “There are people who are really concerned about this.”

Town Councilor Craig Fishbein said that while the increases are unpleasant, they are necessary.

“We have stuff coming down the pike and they’re looking to boost reserves,” Fishbein said.

WALLINGFORD - Hurricane Recovery - Electric Division - Updated Information

As posted on the Town of Wallingford website as of 2PM 8/30:

The Wallingford Electric Division (WED) continues its efforts to restore power to all of its customers. The WED system sustained substantial damage from Hurricane Irene, with power lines down in a number of locations.

Safety remains our primary concern and our first priority has been to secure all downed wires and hazardous sites. In addition, beginning yesterday, we deployed our line crews and Engineering personnel to perform damage assessment and to begin making system repairs. The assessment phase is nearly complete. Restoration work began Sunday afternoon and is ongoing.

The first priority in the restoration process is to repair the distribution feeders that make up our system backbone. This approach enables us to provide power to the greatest number of customers in the most efficient manner. As we get the primary system conductors back in service our crews will begin repairing damaged service wires to customers. This process will continue after the completion of system backbone repairs until all customers are connected.

The WED provides electrical service to the Town of Wallingford and to the Northford section of the Town of North Branford. We estimate that approximately 9,500 WED customers were without power immediately following Irene. Since that time, we have restored power to approximately 8,500 of these customers.

Based on our assessment of the work remaining to be done, we anticipate that there will be less than 500 customers without electric service by the end of today, Tuesday, August 30. Due to the variety of problems that may affect individual customers’ service wires, we are unable to provide a precise time frame at this point for restoration of service to all customers.

The WED has called upon outside resources to supplement its regular work force in order to restore service in the shortest time feasible.

The work force engaged in the field with the restoration effort:

• 7 WED line crews

• 6 line crews from Thirau, LLC, the WED’s line emergency line restoration contractor (3 crews are on site and 2 crews are in-bound).

• Line crews from neighboring municipal electric systems, through the WED’s Mutual Aid Agreement with the Northeast Public Power Association

• 2 from Chicopee MA Municipal Light

• 1 from South Hadley MA Electric Light Dept.

• 1 from Westfield Gas and electric Light Dept.

• 3 tree clearing crews from Asplundh Tree Expert Company

We ask our customers to remember that they are responsible for certain components of the facilities to which the WED delivers service. If any customer-owned facilities are damaged due to a storm or accident these facilities must be repaired by a licensed electrician before the WED can safely restore power. WED crews can only work on WED equipment.

Customers who have questions regarding which components of their electrical service are their responsibility should contact the WED Customer Service Group at 203-265-5055 or 203-294-2020.

To aid in the restoration of power, the WED has prepared a helpful diagram, entitled, What You Need to Know About Your Electric Service Connection.

Customers who use or plan to use a portable electric generator should follow basic safety guidelines detailed in the WED Home Generator Safety Checklist.