Don Wester

Review of New Hampshire Electric Co-Op

This past week's storms brought another swath of p...

This past week's storms brought another swath of power outages in the lakes region. As I understand it not just limbs but entire trees fell on utility poles breaking them off and pulling all the equipment to the ground.

You might think this was always the case, but not so. NHEC has allowed, due to neglect and pocketing the service fees charged, the growth of trees too close to the ROW's (right-of-way) where old-growth trees with rotted trunks and weakened root systems to cause havoc on the safe delivery of what we all require, as most of us don't read by candle-light anymore, dependable electricity.

You might think it is cheaper to repair utility poles than to clear ROW's of trees, right? Not so fast.....it might be cheaper for the utility, perhaps, but the unionized line workers make big money for overtime, and we ratepayers suffer.

I call on the Governor to put the NHEC members first and cause the books to be opened, find out how much the executives make and what the linemen contracts call for. Members, if one reads the coop laws, have no say, lest one can present at a board meeting at least one-hundred signatures asking for time on the agenda. Imagine that, they think that highly of us as they screw us with service fees and feed us the poorest service anywhere.

Here, in my town, tree crews have been active since labor day clearing ROW's but they are leaving the towering trees. Nothing will change but the NHEC executives can report to the NH Utility commission and Guv Sununu that they are working on it.

NHEC is indeed pathetic and the trees have to come down before they take down the equipment which invariably they will.