[geeks] power (was Mr. Bill)

[Ido Dubrawsky]

I think that the power lines outside the city of Washington D.C. (like in 
Silver Spring, Olney, Rockville, etc.) won't be buried due to costs and the
issue of ensuring that the buried lines will stay dry.  Most power companies
right now are dealing with increased fuel costs and are struggling to stay
up with service expansion (at least that's how it seems to be here in the D.C.
Metro area and with BG&E up in Baltimore) to the point that they don't have 
budget to bury currently existing infrastructure -- even if it pays off in the
long term.

As I recall, when Isabel hit in 2003 the actual city of Washington, D.C. had 
power either right after the storm passed or never lost power.  The suburbs 
were dark for about 3 (and in some cases 5 1/2) days.  The difference, in D.C.
alot of the power infrastructure (especially in the historic areas like George-
town) are buried and not exposed.  So you're right, you can do it and it can
provide protection from weather but the costs of burying existing infrastructure
is simply not on the books for PEPCO -- unless they can get a special 
assessment fee added to the customer bills - that's what Washington Suburban
Sanitary Commission wanted to do to the tune of $20 per month per customer for
10 years to pay for replacing aging water main infrastructure in Montgomery
County and Prince George's county.  It was shot by the PUC.  Before it was
shot down WSSC sent me a letter telling me that they would begin replacing the
water main on my street in September 2008 -- our water main has broken about 
a dozen times in the past two years and we've had a couple of sink holes develop
in the street.  After the PUC denied the $20 per month assessment, I got a 
letter from WSSC saying that the project was on an indefinite hold.  I guess
they figure that when more water main breaks will occur the customers will
cry to the PUC to allow WSSC to charge us the $20 assessment so that they'll
fix our water main.

Mind you WSSC, in my mind, should have set aside money for this kind of work
over the many years since the water main was first installed.  I can understand
that costs go up and that things happen but to charge every customer $20 per 
month for 10 years to fix something that they should have been preparing for
seems rather like mis-management.  WSSC has a beautiful headquarters building
near I-95 and Powder Mill Rd.  Very lavish.  The other question I wondered 
about was what would happen to that $20 assessment at the end of the 10 year
project?  Would it be removed or would it just morph into some additional "fee"
that would be used to pay executive salaries and bonuses?

Sorry...didn't mean to start ranting but it would be great if our infrastructure
was more reliable and resiliant.  Maybe we could use some of that money we've
been spending in rebuilding Iraq to rebuild the U.S.?

Ok...I'll get off my soap box.

Ido

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 12:38:33PM -0500, geeks-request at sunhelp.org wrote:
> Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 13:38:26 -0400
> From: Jonathan Katz <jon at jonworld.com>
> Subject: [geeks] power (was Mr. Bill)
> To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
> Message-ID: <3732B798-B128-4FEA-95EF-0E55667595F4 at jonworld.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
> 
> I wrote the following letter to the editor (unpublished) right as  
> Ike's remnants were hitting Indianapolis (leaving almost 400,000  
> people in Indiana without power.)
> 
> Gustav, Ike, Katrina and several nameless tornadoes around central  
> Indiana all reek havoc on hard-working citizens and businesses alike.  
> Heart-breaking tales of lost homes, cherished possessions and injured  
> loved-ones break hearts and evoke strong emotions. In the midst of all  
> this tragedy I began to wonder about a practical and mundane matter;  
> electricity. We have overhead power lines across much of the United  
> States, and as we've seen they're extremely vulnerable to the elements  
> and even an errant motorist. Given we've had about a century to  
> perfect electric generation and transmission in this country why can't  
> we bury power lines to ensure continuous operation in times of peril?  
> The cost of constant repairs after storms should balance the cost on  
> the burial and management of the cables. Additionally, continual  
> electrical service will enable water treatment plants, gas stations,  
> and other essentials key to modern living to continue operations  
> throughout disasters. Why can't this vulnerability in our  
> infrastructure be fixed?
-- 
===============================================================================
Ido Dubrawsky, CISSP
Network Security Architect
dubrawsky.org
http://idubrawsky.wordpress.com
http://www.dubrawsky.org/blogs
===============================================================================

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