Buffalo Grove, ComEd continue to spar over outage claims
Buffalo Grove has yet to receive feedback from the Illinois Commerce Commission regarding a letter sent by Village President Jeffrey Braiman, who voiced his concerns about ComEd's refusal to compensate residents for last year's power outages.
Deputy Village Manager Ghida Neukirch confirmed last week there has been no response to the letter registering the frustration of residents who filed a total of 98 claims with ComEd.
In a letter to Tim Anderson, executive director of the ICC, Braiman noted that ComEd serves a total of 17,783 customers in Buffalo Grove. Nearly half of those customers, 8,434, experienced power outages in the wake of the July 11 storm event.
He wrote, “For many of those customers affected in Buffalo Grove, the outages lasted for several days, substantially disrupting lives and causing the spoliation of perishable commodities. For some Buffalo Grove customers, a complete restoration of electrical service did not occur for nearly a week.”
He added that many residents who had power restored faced a second round of prolonged outages.
“The double-whammy of these multiple-phased interruptions was particularly devastating because, for many customers, it resulted in destruction of a second set of commodities that had been purchased to replace those spoiled during the initial phase of the outage.”
Braiman noted Buffalo Grove's dissatisfaction with ComEd's response. ComEd officials claimed, he said, that the outages were “unpreventable,” when village officials have contended they resulted from the utility's ”institutional indifference to the maintenance and improvement of its infrastructure, along with its failure to properly plan for, and invest in employees, equipment and material necessary to respond to, adverse incidents.”
Braiman cited a recent investigation by the Illinois attorney general's office which concluded that ComEd failed to maintain and properly administer its own infrastructure and distribution system.
He wrote that the Illinois Public Utilities Act requires ComEd to provide compensation to its customers for “all actual damages” suffered as a result of a “power interruption” that affects more than 30,000 customers and lasts more than four hours.
Notwithstanding the ruling, ComEd denied the 98 claims, with External Affairs Manager Diane Emerson writing, “In general, damages resulting from storms, wind, ice, and other incidents beyond our control are not approved for reimbursement by our Claims Department.”
One of the problems, Braiman said, is that there are no standards with which to hold ComEd's feet to the fire.
“Without standards, we can't say whether they are being negligent or not.”
Despite the impasse, Neukirch said the village, through the Northwest Municipal Conference, is working with ComEd to try to resolve some of the issues that emerged last year.
“We have also had meetings regarding emergency response and setting up joint operations centers, where ComEd has a different approach to their emergency response, as well as their communication with the public and the municipalities,” she said.