The Body Electric
Complexity and conflict have always been a part of supplying energy to New York City. In the early 1800s, when gas served as the primary energy source, a multitude of small gas companies provided gas to Manhattan. Competition was so fierce for contracts that gas workers fought for customers in the street, slashing prices so low that the industry nearly went under. In 1884, the companies decided to merge, creating an all-powerful Consolidated Gas Company of New York, later to become Consolidated Edison.
The next fifty years saw nearly every gas, electric and steam company in the city submitting their services to the direction and control of parent company Con Ed. Now, it is one of the largest utility companies in the world, and while deregulation permits customers to pick from different sources of power (wind, for example), or choose which company sends the bills every month, when it comes to actually getting energy through the streets of the city and into their homes, most New Yorkers only have one option: Con Ed.
Con Edison daily fuels more than nine million area residents with electricity, gas and steam—used primarily for heating and cooling—through a complex matrix of pipes and cables that comprise one of the largest underground systems in the world. Con Ed says its 94,000 miles of buried electrical cables could circle the earth 3.6 times. Yet each year as the system naturally ages, it is also corroded by weather, salt, and intense vibrations from subway lines and above-ground traffic.
“The system is so big,” said a Con Ed engineer and systems designer who declined to give his name. “It isn’t easy to maintain it. What makes it unique is that it’s mostly underground, but that also means you can’t see it. In other cities with wires above ground, you can see if a wire is fraying, and then go fix it. It’s not that easy here.”
The maintenance of the labyrinthine network concerns both scholars and local officials. In the aftermath of the summer steam disaster at 41st and Lex, Con Ed was under extreme pressure to explain the cause of the incident. One woman died of a heart attack while fleeing the scene, and two others, mutilated by scorching steam, still suffer from those life-altering injuries. The company hired two private agencies to inspect the damage, and both came up with similar explanations for what had occurred on that terrifying day.
Heavy rainfall had pounded Manhattan the morning of July 18, with the runoff seeping down sewer drains into the underground. The rainwater began to pool around the outside of the steam pipe beneath 41st and Lex that regularly carried steam used by Midtown businesses in their heating and cooling systems. The cold water quickly lowered the temperature within the pipe, transforming hot flowing steam into a cool heavy liquid. A bubble of scorching steam entered the section of the pipe full of the chilled fluid, known by technicians as “condensate,” and created a rapid pressure pulse like an internal hammer pounding from within. Normal steam pressure is 160 pounds per square inch, but this force was 4,000 feet per second, or “a pulse velocity equal to the speed of sound in water,” according to the report by ABS Consulting. A standard pipe could never withstand such power, investigators concluded.
It was an event that could have been avoided. Con Ed workers had passed the Lexington intersection at 11:30 that morning, only making a visual check of what was already a well-known problem area. The workers looked for above-ground steam gushing from manholes – a signal that water was collecting around pipes. By the time they inspected the area, the steam had already dissipated because of the collecting water. Con Ed made no further investigation until the pipe exploded later that afternoon.
To make matters worse, the drain pipes that should have removed the globs of condensate were clogged and unable to function. Congested with debris that Con Ed had not cleaned out, the drain pipes and steam traps insulated the developing bomb, providing further ammunition for the blast.
“The findings of Con Edison’s consultants indicate that the company was, or should have been, aware of the existence of unsafe conditions, particularly at the location of the July 18 incident,” testified Robert E. Curry, Jr., Commissioner of the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC), at a hearing in January 2008. “Our independent investigation may lead to further enforcement and/or rule-making actions.” Since then, Con Ed has submitted a settlement proposal to the PSC, which includes reimbursement to the city for cleanup of the Grand Central site and a plan for avoiding future steam pipe explosions. If and when the settlement is adopted, the PSC will terminate the investigation and Con Ed will be relieved of any further responsibility. (The PSC declines to release details of the investigation or threatened disciplinary action against Con Ed.)
As far as Queens Assemblyman Gianaris is concerned, the PSC has been an ineffective regulator, approving rate hikes while failing to force Con Ed to live up to its obligations to the public. Gianaris’ Western Queens district endured a 10-day blackout that left 174,000 residents and businesses without power during a sweltering summer heat wave.
“Things really exploded—no pun intended—two summers ago,” Gianaris recalls, referring to the July 2006 blackout. “Con Ed treated us like dirt. They lied to us. They continue to deny that they did anything wrong.”
A life-long resident of Astoria, Gianaris was one of the first in the area to lose power. It was early evening—just past 6 o’clock—when the lights went out in Gianaris’ apartment, located in Upper Ditmars, in the northern reaches of the neighborhood. He poked his head out the window, scanning for signs of lost electricity, only to find that the entire street was out. Walking down the block and looping the neighborhood, he discovered that a wide area around his home had been affected. The thermometer registered 100 degrees that day, and he could only hope that when he awoke the next morning his air conditioning would be pumping again. It was a hot, sticky night of restless sleep, and the next day he’d take the first of many cold showers.
Gianaris went into his office as usual, still unaware of the vast numbers of people like himself who also didn’t have electricity. Then the calls started coming in. He had an old-fashioned phone, not cordless or digital like the new models, so even when the lights blinked out that afternoon in his office on 31st Street, he continued taking calls from residents and putting in calls to the press, government officials, and Con Ed.
Throughout the borough, refrigerators reeked with spoiled food, stalled subway lines left thousands stranded, and business came to an abrupt halt. Gianaris, too, was forced to throw out food after two days, and later recalls that he lost five pounds that week due to the lack of food left in his home and the lack of time to eat at all while he whirled in circles trying to raise awareness of the outage’s severity. He lived off a Ready New York preparation kit, stored as an afterthought years earlier—a flashlight and batteries would be the only tools he had to get through the outage. It upset him to watch celebrated local eateries filling dumpsters with putrid groceries, and it infuriated him that Con Ed downplayed the crisis, claiming that only a few hundred “customers” had lost power. But a customer could be anything from a tenant in a studio apartment to an entire high rise. The utility was forced to admit that in fact 25,000, and eventually 174,000 people in Northwest Queens were in the dark.
Gianaris saw his friends, family, and the people that he’d grown up with suffer day after day. Gianaris, 38, who stands taller than his six feet and proudly smiles with a boyish grin, exudes all the hopeful idealism of someone who went into politics to make a difference and help the little guys. With mounting frustration, he held press conferences outside of his office and finally convinced Mayor Michael Bloomberg to visit Astoria and see the misery with his own eyes. The moment was commemorated by The Daily Show, which played a clip of Gianaris scoffing behind Mayor Bloomberg’s back, as the mayor thanked Con Ed for all they were doing to try to re-establish power to Queens. The Assemblyman recalls the moment with sheepish pride, asking, “Did you see Jon Stewart make fun of me on his show?”
For many of his neighbors, the blackout was hardly a laughing matter. Most heart-wrenching for Gianaris were the calls he received from residents who were ill and relied on refrigerated medication. Many elderly locals, trapped in high-rises where the elevators weren’t working, didn’t have food or water. And responses from Con Ed were few and far between. Residents didn’t even have a way to communicate with Con Ed: Callers received an automated message with no instructions and could not leave a message. Power wasn’t fully restored until July 26.
After an extensive analysis, Con Ed linked the blackout to overloaded and in some cases burned cables, overheated transformers, and several manhole explosions that resulted from the other breakdowns. Con Ed officials decided to continue running power to all of Queens while they attempted to restore the few that were down, which overloaded more cables and spread the damage. Some of the cables had been pumping power for nearly 60 years.
