LESSONS LEARNED WHILE ON THE BEAT
COURIER LIFE, SEPT. 4–10, 2020 13
WITH BROOKLYN BOROUGH PRESIDENT ERIC ADAMS
Mother Nature has run out of patience: It’s
time to act on Outer Borough storm resiliency
BY ERIC ADAMS &
JUSTIN BRANNAN
Mother Nature does not
care about the ongoing pandemic,
or the economic devastation
it has wreaked on our City
budget. In case any New Yorker
doubted that, Tropical Storm
Isaias set them straight. The intense
winds forced bridges and
railways to shut down, while
knocking down thousands of
trees that crashed into cars,
homes, and power lines. According
to Con Edison, Isaias
created the second-worst storm
outage in its history, trailing
only Superstorm Sandy in its
impact. For those of us in the
outer boroughs, it was déjà vu
all over again.
While more than 130,000
Con Edison customers lost
power due to Isaias, less than
100 of those customers were in
Manhattan. It took more than a
week for the lights to go back on
for all those affected, a damning
statement on the responsiveness
of our government and
utilities as well as our overall
resiliency. Extended power outages
are a threat to public health
and safety, especially amid the
sweltering heat of summer that
imperils our seniors and other
vulnerable neighbors. In the
wake of Isaias, and in the midst
of a hurricane season that will
probably not peak for weeks,
we should be focused on actions
big and small that will keep the
lights on when the next storm
hits.
After Sandy, our city restarted
a conversation about
burying power lines as a resiliency
investment to safeguard
against the impact of intense
storms. It is a conversation that
dates back to the Great Blizzard
of 1888, when the impact
of downed, sparking wires and
days of citywide darkness compelled
then-Mayor Grant’s order
to bury all overhead wires
at the time. Local Law 13 of 2013
directed the City to formally
study the expanded utilization
of underground power lines,
which called the conversion
“cost prohibitive.” The same
study called Sandy an “anomaly,”
which increasingly feels
like wishful thinking; 2020
is the record-breaking sixth
straight season with two pre-
June storms, and it’s the fi rst
on record to have nine tropical
storms form before August.
The acceleration of climate
change corresponds with an acceleration
of the cost for the status
quo.
While Public Service Commission
Chair John Rhodes
has promised a new review of
this issue on the state level, the
two of us are partnering on new
City legislation requiring an
up-to-date cost assessment on
burying the remaining overhead
power lines throughout
the outer boroughs, taking into
account the rising costs associated
with keeping them above
ground. If the cost estimate
seems feasible given current fi scal
realities, we should explore
a public works initiative with a
mix of public and private funding
streams to bury these lines,
which would put thousands of
New Yorkers back to work.
We do not have to wait for
that study to begin chipping
away at this problem. Storm resiliency
is as basic an exercise
as managing our street trees.
We urge City Hall to loosen
stringent regulations around
tree pruning by private contractors,
allow more leeway for homeowners
to hire private contractors
rather than relying on
the Parks Department for preventative
pruning, and restore
cuts to the City’s pruning budget,
which would be less costly
than retroactively addressing
downed trees. In addition, this
issue is one of many examples
where we see the shortcomings
of our 311 system, as complaints
are mysteriously closed
out or deprioritized. Make no
mistake, we can directly connect
ignored requests for tree
maintenance with the massive
power outages suffered from
Bay Ridge to Bayside.
The reality of climate
change is that these storms
will be more violent and more
frequent in the years ahead.
Every reform we defer or investment
we delay is likely to
be more costly as time goes
on, not just in the price tag
of implementation but in the
loss of jobs, homes, and lives
due to inaction. The beginning
of August showed us that
with Isaias, as did the end of
the month with Hurricane
Laura, which made the tenthstrongest
American hurricane
landfall on record. We cannot
afford to wait for a more convenient
time for change, because
Mother Nature has run out of
patience.
Eric Adams is Brooklyn
Borough President.
Justin Brannan is a New
York City Councilman who
represents the neighborhoods
of Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights,
Bensonhurst and Bath Beach.
Borough President Eric Adams.
OP-ED
Are we getting conned by ConEd?
BY JUSTIN BRANNAN
The end of summer means
after months of cranking the
AC, it’s almost time for those
dreaded summer utility bills.
I don’t know about you, but for
the past several years, when I
get these crazy bills, I’ve often
asked myself: where does all
this money go? What exactly am
I paying for? And why is such a
basic need so expensive?
The answer is: when we pay
our utility bills, we’re actually
writing checks to for-profi t entities
to deliver us energy that we
already own. Sound fair? Yeah,
I didn’t think so.
Energy makes its way into
your home because a private
company – in New York City’s
case, ConEd – buys energy from
the public grid, in order to sell it
– or deliver it – to you. They are
effectively a middleman, which
delivers your taxpayer-funded
energy to you, but not before
charging you a markup on that
energy. Why charge a markup?
Because ConEd, like Amazon
or Apple, is a private company
with shareholders looking to
make a profi t.
Regardless of what party
you belong to or what your politics
are, I think we can all agree
that in 2020 and beyond, electricity
is a necessity, not a luxury.
Can you live without electricity?
Well, then that makes
energy a human right, not a
commodity to be sold for profi t.
A shareholder’s desire to make
money should not come before
your needs as a user of that electricity.
But our current model
creates a problem of accountability:
is ConEd’s fi rst priority
the delivery of fast, effi cient, reliable
electricity to our homes
or is to make as much money as
possible for their shareholders?
Hmmm.
Let’s be real: when the primary
goal is to generate profi t
for your shareholders, and pay
millions of dollars in salary to
your highest executives while
you do it, there will never be
enough money to make the
hard fi xes necessary to adapt
for the changing climate. These
days, rate hikes have become as
reliable as power outages. For
decades, we’ve seen our bills go
up and up while our service has
become less and less reliable.
It’s no wonder ConEd shareholders
have seen nearly 50
years of dividend increases!
But there is a solution to this
problem: bring our utilities under
full public control. By doing
this, we can save New Yorkers
money, end mass outages, and
invest in renewable energy that
will help us adapt to a quickly
changing climate. Publicly
owned utilities are also democratically
controlled, and can be
held accountable when things
go wrong. Which means we no
longer will have to beg the executives
of for-profi t utility companies
to do the right thing. I’ve
tried. It doesn’t work.
I’m calling on my colleagues
in the New York State legislature
to pass Assemblyman Robert
Carroll’s bills, which taken
together will bring our energy
grid under full public ownership
and control. We can’t afford
to get conned by ConEd.
There’s no time to waste.
Justin Brannan is a New
York City Councilman who represents
the neighborhoods of
Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst
and Bath Beach.