Mayor: JCP&L's Answers Generic, Unclear

Questions posed to Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L), Washington Township's energy provider, during a town hall meeting on Nov. 21 have been answered by the company.

According to Mayor Ken Short, a second list of questions has been sent to the company, since the responses provided are generic and unclear.

"JCP&L took great effort to address and respond to questions from the residents of Washington Township," said Ron Morano, senior public relations manager of the utility company. "We've been very much engaged with our customers and have been taking action on their concerns."

The following is a list of 32 questions posed to JCP&L with the company's responses, printed in bold.

1) What is our plan to improve communications between JCP&L and it’s customers during major power outages as well as shorter term, but chronic outages.

JCP&L implemented several changes suggested following Hurricane Irene during the October snowstorm.  Among them were a special storm webpage with regular updates on the progress of restoration including municipality and street location estimates.   The social media outlet Twitter was also used for updates including information on where customers could receive water, ice and shelter.

2) What plans does JCP&L have to upgrade the infrastructure in and around Washington Twp?

As part of its operations and maintenance JCP&L regularly reviews all areas for reliability improvements.  In Washington Township  equipment additions or replacements already completed include  81 spacers,  19 lightning arrestors,  11 spacer cable ties and 15 fuses, JCP&L also plans to create a tie between the Chester 17542 circuit and the Drakestown 17101 circuit , perform spot tree trimming, replace porcelain cutouts with polymer cutouts and install additional spacers.

3) How much money do you plan to spend on the upgrades?

To improve reliability of service for customers JCP&L is in the process of constructing the Tewksbury substation on Fox Hill Road, Califon.  When completed in 2012 this new source will provide operational flexibility to customers on Parker Road, Long Valley Washington Township.  The Tewksbury substation project is a multi million dollar project.  The distribution tie that will benefits customers on Parker Road is projected to cost over $130,000.  In addition to the Tewksbury Substation, other capital projects will develop from our maintenance programs and it is difficult to estimate the cost until the programs are completed and the new projects are created.  Also, as part of our regular maintenance program the distribution circuit poles out of the Newburgh Substation are scheduled to be inspected in 2012 and any deficient poles will be reinforced or replaced.  The Newburgh 17779 circuits serve customers in Washington Township. 

4) Does JCP&L have plans to install overhead wires underground? If not, why?

There are no plans to install wires underground. Installing wires underground is costly and will not prevent the occurrence of power outages.  Underground facilities also are more time consuming to repair during outages because faults cannot be as readily seen and roads must be closed and dug up to make repairs.  JCP&L’s rates, as determined by the BPU, are based on overhead construction.

5) Why doesn’t JCP&L trim rural areas like Washington Twp more frequent then every four years?

JCP&L trims trees on a four-year cycle because it is the most effective way to manage growth of branches and limbs near wires.   In addition to the usual four-year cycle trimming, JCP&L also does spot tree trimming.  The four-year cycle is what is required of all New Jersey electric utilities by the Board of Public Utilities.

6) How much money doesn’t JCP&L plan to spend in Washington Twp on tree trimming and removal in 2012?

The money JCP&L spends is not town specific and that would be difficult to quantify. Circuits run through multiple towns and spending on circuits in surrounding towns also benefits Washington Township.  Transmission lines bringing power to substations in the area are also trimmed regularly.

In 2011 JCP&L spent $29 million on distribution vegetation management and $3 million on transmission vegetation management for a total of $32 million.

For the period from 2006 – 2011 JCP&L spent $107 million on distribution vegetation management and $14 million on transmission vegetation management for a total of $121 million.

7) How does spot trimming get underway? Does the customer initiate this or does the company automatically perform this?

When customer issues are raised areas that have been trimmed on the four-year cycle may be revisited and trimmed if necessary.   Spot trimming is initiated by JCP&L after engineering or forestry conducts an analysis.

8) Can JCP&L proactively remove the dangling branches after a storm?

Yes, JCP&L’s forestry contractors remove dangling branches damaged by a previous storm.   JCP&L does not remove branches from customer service wires or phone or cable wires.

9) Why did your customer service reps consider Washington Twp a low priority during the October snow storm?

JCP&L does not assign priority based upon municipality.  Restoration efforts are the same for all customers.  Emergency 911 calls are responded to first.  Priority is also given to emergency services such as hospitals, police and fire departments and utility service such as sewer and water plants.  Overall restoration efforts focus on outages that will return the largest groups of customers such as outages to substations or entire circuits. 

10) Who do we contact regarding the wire down across the driveway? What’s the procedure for dealing with these issues?

Any downed wire should be considered a live wire.  Customers should contact JCP&L or the local police or fire department to report downed wires.  It is also important to never attempt to remove tree limbs or branches from downed wires.  When reported a JCP&L troubleman is dispatched to determine if it is an electric wire and if necessary, makes an immediate repair.  JCP&L does not repair downed phone or cable wires.

11) My transformer frequently blows can we get this check?

JCP&L investigated the causes of the outages and is not aware that any of the outages were caused by a transformer failure. Outages experienced were due to trees outside of the trimming zone, lightning, planned maintenance, and line failures.   If a fault is created on a wire due to a limb, animal, weather or a car accident, the system is designed to trip and isolate the system from further damage. These are the outages seen by a customer.

12) What can the community do to assist JCP&L to reduce both the duration and frequency of outages?

Any operations issues can be reported directly to JCP&L’s customer service department.  The mayor and business administrator can also report issues to  area manager, Stan Prater,  JCP&L’s municipal contact.  In the snowstorm, we worked with the town leaders to prioritize road clearings and help homeowners prepare their service entry lines for more rapid hook up.

13) How do we determine the number of customers to be restored during an outage? Is it based on the number of customers or the number of customers with electric heat, well, septic etc?

Following the restoration of 911 and emergency facilities, customers are restored in a process to get the highest group of customers restored first. This begins by restoring transmission lines, substations, distribution lines and then individual customer services last.

14) What does JCP&L plan to do to prevent multiple automated calls stating that your power has been restored, but has not?

Based on the feedback we have received we are currently working to make improvements in the callback system including the wording of the information it shares.  The callback feature serves as a valuable tool for JCP&L to determine if there are more widespread issues to address after equipment failures have been repaired. It also is designed to be sure we are aware of an outage where the customer has failed to call in to report their outage.

15) If a storm goes more then several days why do we still prioritize customer restoration by the highest number of customers out of power in a given area?

This is a proven industry wide practice for the most rapid restoration of customers. As we have noted, repairing an individual wire or transformer will not restore customers to service if a bigger issue needs to be addressed to restore the circuits or substations that serve Washington Township.

16) Does every customer need to report their outage?

Yes, it is important that every customer call JCP&L to report that they are out of service. Without this, we may restore power to the neighborhood but be unaware of damage to the individual service wire to the home.

17)  Spacer Cable seems to be sturdier, is single phase wire less sturdy?

A Spacer is a device used to separate wires.  The spacer cable system and the open wire (Single phase wire) are both sturdy systems. They are used in different areas depending on the design need.  

18) What is the role of the Customer Service Specialist (Lesa McGuinness)? During the meeting she was referred as the Customer Advocate

She is the Customer Advocate for the region and her job is to address certain regulatory and customer problems, concerns or complaints.   She also works closely with various departments throughout the region to promote resolving problems.

19) How are the outage numbers reported on the website?  There are 8 zip codes for Washington Twp?

Currently, outages numbers are reported by zip codes. However, again as a result of the feedback we have received we are in the process of utilizing tax district as another way report outages.

20) Why can’t I reach a live person in the Call Center during a major power outage?

During the snowstorm we received more than 380,000 calls to our customer call center.  Call center representatives spend their entire time speaking with customers that call in.   Wait times are longer during major storm events. While all customers may not be able to reach a live person during the storm, we have an automated system that takes outage information and sends it directly to JCPL operations to address.

21) Does JCP&L have a disaster plan? If so, can it be made available to the public?

JCP&L, like all utilities, has plans in place to address all types of emergencies. These plans are discussed with the NJBPU on a regular basis. JCP&L also works hand-in-hand with county offices of emergency management as well as the New Jersey Regional Operations Information Center (ROIC) during major events.

22) Can the residents get the same information from JCP&L as the Mayor?

Yes.  Information on outages and ETRs that is shared with mayors and other elected officials is posted on the JCP&L website. This information is developed in conjunction with discussions with mayors in an effort to further communications and the restoration process.

23) Why doesn’t my meter read get every month?

JCP&L has 1.1 million meters to read every month.  We attempt to read every meter but occasionally weather, lack of access or other system events prevent the scheduled read and cause a meter to be estimated. If a reading is missed, the customer’s bill is adjusted after the next read.  

24) Were line workers laid off?

No - in fact JCP&L has hired more than 130 new line and substation workers who graduated from our Power Systems Institute Program since 2005.

25) What provisions are made for critical care customers?

Customers who have provided medical documentation to the Company can be designated as critical care customers. After we restore the 911 and emergency facilities, we restore power to transmission, substation and distribution lines. As we get down to individual services, we try to prioritize service to these critical care customers. 

26) What are your plans for improving, and allowing, for communications between Washington Township DPW/Police Department and JCP&L's onsite supervisors?  JCP&L's efforts could have been greatly improved if they allowed for input from the Township.

Improving communication has been a primary focus of our efforts.  We are continuing to work on developing a communication plan that would incorporate local departments of public works and police departments for reporting information. In major storm events JCP&L coordinates through the County Office of Emergency Management which also helps in prioritization and communications.

27) What changes will be made to treat Washington Township as one community?  We currently have eight zip codes and it was extremely confusing identifying outages.  Perhaps a community code?

See the answer to #19

28) When will your web-site be functional?

As with most websites, there are temporary periods of time when the system needs maintenance and may be unavailable and this happened for a short time during the snowstorm.  The website is functional and provided valuable information during the snowstorm

29) Why were there no crews, from NJ, in Washington Township for the          first several days?  Where were they sent?

During the first hours of a storm, line crews are working throughout our service territory to make areas safe.  There were 20,000 wires down during the snowstorm and crews travelled to all areas to make conditions safe and move on.  Tree crews work ahead of our line crews to clear areas. There were over 8000 areas to have trees cleared. JCP&L hazard assessors are dispatched to damage locations to report back conditions and material requirements. During a storm, there are many different types of personnel that can be seen in all municipalities. They are all an integral part of the storm restoration process.  Once areas are made safe, line and service crews return to begin repairs.  

30) What efforts will be made to geographically co-ordinate repair crews so they will not spend half of the day traveling?  Crews were going from Washington Township to Boonton, to Jefferson, and back to Washington Township.

JCP&L has regional operations districts located throughout its service area including, Boonton, Dover, Newton, Summit, Washington and Flemington in northern NJ.  During major storm events staging areas are established for outside crews and contractors. 

31) What were the "meter readers" doing the event?  After the outages?

Meter readers play an important role serving as hazard responders and public protectors reporting to scenes of downed wires and other damaged equipment during major storms.  They return to reading meters at the conclusion of a storm event.

32) Why were all of last months bills "estimated"?  Many residents were out of power for 20%-30% of the month.  Their bills should have reflected a large decrease.  Cash flow to First Energy?

See Answer #23.