“On It!”: Con Ed’s year - what’s Con Ed on?

Please note that this post omits any discussion of power outages.

July 18th: Steam pipe explosion kills one near Grand Central Terminal;

October 8th: gas leak causes explosion in Harlem;

December: Con Ed subcontractor is accused of stealing from customers’ homes;

November 22^nd: Queens woman killed in gas main explosion after calling to report leak and by the Fire Department that it was safe to return to her house;

Con Ed’s problems with stray voltage causing injury and death to people and dogs go back at least as far as 1997, when Philip Vanaria was severely shocked using a payphone in the West Village; still when Jodie Lane was killed while walking her dogs in the East Village in 2004 (Con Ed paid Lane’s family $7.2 million); in May, it was reported that because Con Ed was unable to make repairs immediately, it was hiring livery cabs - sometimes with sleeping drivers - to “guard” the sites.

We think that two inferences can fairly be drawn from this record:

• Whatever regulatory efforts are being made - they don’t seem sufficient;
• We can use all the conservation efforts we can manage;
• the more clean, renewable, locally produced power - the better
• Perhaps the inspection/compliance system needs to be community-based. If stray voltage is conspicuous enough to occasionally kill dogs (essentially barefooted), and people (through shoes) - detecting stray voltage with testing equipment should be a teachable skill.