Political Op-Ed
An edited version of this piece, entitled “Holding Eversource Accountable”, was published in the New Canaan Advertiser on Aug. 14, 2020.
It was written by me, but published under the name of my boss.
As of Monday morning, over 91,000 households in Connecticut still remained without power. 88,000 of those are customers of Eversource, our main utilities contractor. The storm Isaias hit our state last Tuesday, and Eversource met the moment with a stunted response that is all-too-familiar to many Connecticut residents.
Eversource spokespeople said the storm resulted in 250 miles of downed wire and 4,300 fallen trees that needed to be taken care of. They say that part of the reason for this slow answer on their part is due to the need for their crews to follow strict guidelines due to the virus. Instead of accepting Eversource’s excuses, I’d prefer to follow in the footsteps of Governor Lamont. Eversource needs to be held accountable. They were clearly not prepared for this natural disaster, despite the fact that this type of event is quite literally what they exist for.
Lamont has not minced words when talking about the disappointing response to this storm. “I’m going to hold their feet to the fire everyday until this is done.” The Governor expressed frustration with Eversource, and hinted that there is hope for residents that Connecticut’s way of giving residents electricity could change. In his words, “We’re going to have plenty of time to have a postmortem of all the things that went wrong,” He is choosing to deal with the situation by asking the President for state of emergency status before going after Eversource.
While Eversource was laying off middle-class workers during the pandemic, their executive’s wages kept growing exponentially and unjustifiably. The Eversource CEO makes $19 million a year. Perhaps if that money was invested in the labor force, outages could have been dealt with swiftly and effectively. Instead that money was used for executive stock options.
The term that has arisen consistently in my discussions with constituents is deja vu. Many residents lost power for over a week at the hands of CL&P in 2012 when Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on the east coast. In 2020, the same company is responsible for your poor experience, but they’ve changed their name and hope you treat this as their first major screw-up. That’s a luxury they don’t deserve.
This is something we can deal with in the long-term by making drastic changes, but here are things I keep thinking about. It’s been a topic of discussion for a long time, but it is time for Connecticut’s power lines to be put underground. At this point considering all we’ve endured, and the likelihood that events like this will continue to happen more frequently due to the existential threat that is climate change, it’s time we take this proposal more seriously. Universally underground power lines are a worthwhile investment, and would be a historic step into the future for our state. Possibly even more pressing is the fact that it’s time we consider other options to giving and maintaining electricity in our state. The private sector has shown time and time again that they cannot be trusted, that they are not adept for these challenges. Especially considering the recent rise in price for our energy bills across the state, a deal that disappointed elected officials on both sides of the aisle, this is not the treatment we deserve.
This also begs the question that it might be time to switch to a renewable form of energy, because not only does it save money in the long term, but it saves our planet. If we can take away anything from Isiasis and storms of the past is that these systems are intensifying year after year due to climate change. In the future, as the planet becomes warmer, tropical storms like Isiasis could become an annual occurrence in New England, bringing with them natural and economic destruction. Now is the time to update our energy infrastructure to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change. We can galvanize public frustration against Eversource and turn it into a revolutionary sustainability effort. In 2011, Boulder, CO fought utility monopolies to create a publicly funded energy system that is composed of green energy. Many other cities are following suit such as Austin, TX and Sacramento, CA who are on track to be entirely green by 2050. Connecticut is at an energy crossroads, evolving proactively, or taking steps that will once again wind us back here in the coming years. As of a couple years ago, solar and other forms of renewable energy have become significantly cheaper than fossil fuels once implemented. I think we should start there.
Governor Lamont said earlier this week, referring to his response to the Virus that he… “hoped for the best but planned for the worst. That’s not what the utilities have done… that’s not what Eversource has done.” So why would we expect them to be better in the future?
