Businesses, elected Colorado officials express concerns over Xcel Energy's pre-emptive power shutdowns
The reviews are coming in from Boulder County about the move of Xcel Energy to shut down power pre-emptively as a powerful windstorm raked Colorado's Front Range -- and they're not good.
"We never got notification of any means," said Kevin Daly, owner of three Boulder restaurants including the Mountain Sun Pub and Brewery.
"Sent someone to our warehouse and we have these huge coolers that we use for barbecues and events and we iced down all of our perishable meats," said Daly.
He considers himself lucky. He lost no stock. But did lose tens of thousands of dollars in revenue by being closed on what would normally be a busy Saturday and Sunday.
"Trying to close a restaurant in the dark, you're actually having to comp everyone that's eating food, you can't close out your tabs. You're wrapping up stuff with headlamps."
City of Boulder and Boulder County leaders express frustration over power outage
The city did not know much about what was coming, either.
"We were reaching out to our mayor constantly and they kept saying that they knew nothing."
The city as well as the county both knew little about Xcel's plans until late, and that has been a source of frustration.
"We didn't know that they were considering preventative proactive public safety shutdowns until about 7 o'clock on Friday night," said Boulder spokesperson Sarah Huntley. "We would have liked to have had a seat that table much earlier to talk about that. Both as a theoretical strategy and its application in this case."
Xcel said it consulted with meteorologists to decide on the pre-emptive power outages, but Boulder believes its experts on fire should also have been consulted as a resource of knowledge about fire danger.
"They also had some good intelligence about the vegetation, the fuel level, the moisture in the actual ground cover on the trees as well as the humidity level."
County commissioners chimed in Tuesday as well.
"I don't think it's reasonable for them to still be restoring power here on Tuesday when the wind was effectively over midday on Sunday," said Boulder County Commissioner Claire Levy.
Xcel Energy said it had completed restoration by Tuesday night and had checked 600 miles of lines.
"No regret," said regional vice president Hollie Velasquez Horvath about the pre-emptive shutoffs. "We know that we (made) the right decision, the damage that we have seen on our lines. We have replaced upwards of 50 poles. We have replaced upwards of 37,000 miles of conduit electric conduit."
"I don't want to second guess the decision to do it," said Levy. "I think what my main message is, if this is the way we're going to respond to wildfire hazards then there needs to be appropriate planning, appropriate criteria for when. Appropriate criteria for how broadly and they need to have the plans in place to restore power quickly."
Situation became desperate at homeless shelter and wastewater treatment plant
Boulder had no power at its homeless shelter until a city leader brought in a generator. One of the city's wastewater treatment plants was left without power without generating capacity. The power demand, said Huntley, is too great for generators to pick up the job when power goes out, so Xcel and the city previously connected the plant to two different power grids. Both were turned off.
"The wastewater treatment facility has to be operating at all times to be able to process the sewage that's coming into the facility and have it go out in raw form out of the facility," said Huntley.
Plant workers opened a storage tank that was not in use due to construction on site and got in touch with Xcel. After three hours of outage, power to the plant was turned back on before there was overflow that would have been sent into Boulder Creek. Several communities downstream use the creek to supplement water supplies.
Xcel Energy says it will work to better understand "needs of communities"
More customers in Boulder County were affected by the shutdowns than the other five Colorado counties where power was turned off.
"We do prepare several days in advance. We start communication several days in advance, letting our customers know that the storm is coming, and we will have risk of power outages," said Velasquez Horvath.
But she admitted to regret about the late notice given the local government.
"I think this event actually helped us better understand what the needs are going to be from our communities and I believe that it was. It was a good thing, so that we can integrate and consider all of the things that we missed."
Huntley noted that the burden of going without power falls more heavily on those at the lower end of the economic scale and that should enter the calculation in any future shutdowns.
"It's much more difficult for somebody on a fixed income, for example, to replace a refrigerator's worth of groceries."
There are likely to be more with severe fire risk weather in the future. Xcel has been planning to bring its wildfire mitigation plan to the Public Utilities Commission in June.
Colorado state leaders criticize handling of the communication about the outages
The offices of state Rep. Judy Amabile, a Democrat who represents Boulder, and Senate President Steve Fenberg, who also represents Boulder, released a statement criticizing the handling of the communication about the power outages.
The statement said the Public Utilities Commission has "committed to hold a public comment hearing next week followed by an investigation workshop by the end of the month."
There is a survey and comment process available already on the PUC's website at puc.colorado.gov.
Daly was less forgiving and called for the City of Boulder to do more.
"It doesn't seem right. If they can regulate small restaurants they should regulate the utility," he said.
"I have to have 10 licenses posted. They can shut me down in a day's notice if I'm not compliant with those regulations and yet they are completely saying they have no power to regulate our monopoly utility."
