Photo: Village trustees were able to get to regular board issues after a 45-minute public hearing regarding residents raising chickens in the village of Wellsville.
By JOHN ANDERSON
The planned power outage for the village of Wellsville on Sunday (Nov. 10) was scheduled for 12-14 hours, and took almost exactly 16 hours before power was restored.
The power went out at 6 a.m. and most residents had power by midnight or just after. Several businesses had to close and some homeowners lost food. However, despite low temperatures, no injuries were reported and volunteers were standing by and warming stations were available.
With the extra time the outage took, questions have come up: Will this type of outage need to happen again? Was this just one part of a project? And, why the extra two hours delay?
After the village board met on Tuesday night and after an executive session on an unrelated matter, Wellsville Mayor Randy Shayler and Trustee Michael Roeske sat down with the Wellsville Sun and addressed the questions that have been raised.
They also explained how the work will prevent the contant two-hour power outages that happen in Wellsville when there are storms or high winds. As a result of the work, power cout be out for minutes for most of the village, or no loss of power at all.
Employees for O’Connell Electric Company spend long shifts during the entire outage, 40 feet in the air on the electric poles in the village through cold, wind and rain. When the heavier rain came down during the dark hours, the employees kept working.
WILL THIS HAPPEN AGAIN?
Tuesday night was a long one for village officials. First there was a public hearing for over 45 minutes on the right to raise chickens in the village. Then the meeting and a lengthy executive session on a property issue and potential legal issues.
During the meeting, the power outage garnered a few thoughts.
Trustee Jeff Monroe said, “I’d like to thank the emergency services and DPW (department of public works) for their work during the power outage. It went pretty smooth but longer than we wanted.”
Village Public Works Director Dean Arnold said, “We have to go through a lot of issues and I’ll have a full report at the next meeting. We need to check with the contractor and (National Grid) and over what happened.”
Shayler then made a lighthearted joke that “the lights are on, aren’t they?” and that no one will have to pay for electricity during the time the power was off.
After the meeting in the interview with the Sun, Shayler turned serious when asked, will another 14-hour power outage be needed to continue fixing phases of electric upgrades in the village?
“It ain’t gonna happen,” Shayler said sternly.
Shayler and Roeske said during the planning for the power outage, village crews realized that because the power was going down for National Grid to install a switch, they could have the opportunity to work on other issues in the village that could only be done while the power was out.
THE HISTORY
Shayler said the substation on Niles Hill was a brilliant project put in by former Wellsville public works employees who saw the need for additional electricity in the village.
“It predates me and our past DPW director Bill Whitfield. I’m not sure if this was under Phil Hyer or (Donald) MacFarquhar (a public works director who started in 1967 and had a civil engineering degree).
“They decided decades ago to put redundant (multiple) transformers on Niles Hill,” Shayler explained.
As a result, two units running at 50 percent each power the village. If more power is needed, they can handle it. But, if one goes down, residents would not lose power as the other can take on 100 percent use.
If the village did not run both at once and left one as a “backup,” it could over corrode and become useless. However, both receive maintenance.
“We felt, as long as the power is knocked out, let’s get some work done on Niles Hill,” Shayler said. “There was another power box on Route 19 that was never fully repaired that had to be fixed by turning the power off. While the power was off, village crews fixed that as well.”
REMOTE CONTROL
Using remote control sounds easy in 2024 to fix electric issues, but until Monday morning when the work was done, that was not the case in the village.
Electric from Wellsville comes in from the east (from Andover) and from the west (from Scio).
The village has electricity coming in from National Grid to the Niles Hill substation. The work was called “The Andover switch.”
“Power comes in from Andover, a tree falls on wire, the wire goes to the ground and we lose power,” Roeske said. “Someone from National Grid has to drive here from Buffalo to fix their switch.”
That process took just over two hours. And it happened quite a few times over the years. In one instance, that employee was on vacation. By the time someone was located who could do the work, they were in Syracuse and the power was out in Wellsville for six hours.
“We are still going to have problems,” Shayler warned. “The darn trees are still going to fall on the ‘Andover wire,’ but someone in Buffalo can de-energize the Andover wire and energize the wire coming from Scio as back up to get power back up.”
Shayler then reaches across the table and simulates flipping a switch.
“What took two to six hours, now takes the time it takes to reach over and push a button,” Shayler said. “They can identify the problem so fast, many times we don’t lose power.”
As for the work being done in November opposed to the summer, Shayler said the village wanted this scheduled 12 to 14 hour power outage in the summer. He said it would have been easier on residents and businesses.
A bid went out to do the work and O’Connell Electric Company had a bid of $172,000 to do the work. Shayler said that was “substantially” lower than the other three bids.
“We would much rather have had this done in the summer time but the parts needed were not available until the fall and this was something we had to do,” Shayler said. “What National Grid (and O’Connell Electric) did is a huge benefit to the village. I can’t stress enough how hard they worked so we can have issues resolved remotely and electronically.”
Roeske said, “Those O’Connell guys were out there working hard, it was cold, it was dark and there was rain … and they kept working. We thought for sure they were going to call it quits.”
WORK ON NILES HILL
Shayler put it simply, “Niles Hill is the gateway to Wellsville. And we have to increase the capabilities there to increase the electricity in the village of Wellsville.”
He said that the fenced area is in the second part of a multi-phase upgrade to the substation on Niles Hill.
Once again, Roeske and Shayler explained having the ability to repair and do maintenance on both of them with the power out saved additional short power outages in the village.
Shayler explained as O’Connell employees were finishing up, the village crews were still working on the Niles Hill substation. In the dark and rain, that project was taking longer than expected. After two hours, a decision was made to turn the power back on in the entire village and run it off the one unit, Shayler said.
“Village employees maintain them and as a result, we can run off one and there is no disruption of service,” Shayler said.
Employees will continue to work on the second unit on Niles Hill. As part of that project, power will go down again to get both back up and running together.
“We will alert the public that we will have a scheduled outage and we will take down the electricity for a short period of time,” Shayler said. “In my opinion, it will be one to two hours. It’s going to be the third of a multi-phrase project to upgrade the Niles Hill substation.”
Shayler said this is work that has to be done.
“This is being done because residents today are using more electricity in their homes,” Shayler said. “We are also prepared for more industry, more usage and more jobs. We don’t know how the future will hold with electric cars, but we will be prepared.”
Shayler praised the planning of the department of public works and the employees of the village.
“The village employees took advantage of all of the other opportunities to fix many issues in the village while the power was down,” he added.
TRANSPARENCY BY THE VILLAGE
Historically, village board meetings are not heavily attended until an issue comes up. But information has been available, from constant financial updates from Village Treasurer Melissa Mullen to the minutes and results from Village Clerk Wendy Seely. And, most recently, code enforcement updates from Jo Fenske on properties and village ordinances.
The plans and the cost to taxpayers were all made public by Seeley. After the Aug. 12 meeting, the village posted results online. All agendas and the results are available.
The minutes said, “Village of Wellsville Trustees have approved the 2024-25 Annual Budget which includes a Capital Plan; and … in discussion with the Electric Department, has deemed it necessary to purchase a 115kV Switch for the Niles Hill substation for the Electric Department, which will be utilized in all functions of the Electric Department … the price of this equipment, installation and engineering will be an amount that shall not exceed $172,000.
After that vote, trustees then approved a resolution to go after a technical assistance grant for “Proposed Phase II of the Niles Hill Substation Upgrade.”
The resolution read, “an Engineering Report, entitled “Niles Hill Substation Upgrades,” details that in 2019 a Condition Assessment and Basis of Design Report was completed to capture the condition of the existing substation equipment and recommends implementing the Project Upgrades needed for reliable operation during the next 30 years.”
