City Council - City Services & Innovation Technology Committee Hearing on Docket #1447

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For the record, my name is Enrique Pepén, District 5 City Councilor, and I'm the Chair of the Boston City Council Committee on City Services and Innovation Technology. Today is Monday, December 1st, 2025. The exact time is 2.07 p.m. This hearing is being recorded. It is also being live streamed at boston.gov slash city-council-tv and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, Fios Channel 964. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.csit at boston.gov and will be made a part of the record and available to all counselors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing. Individuals will be called on in the order in which they signed up. and we'll have two minutes to testify. If you're interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign up sheet near the entrance of the chamber. If you're looking to testify virtually, please email our central staff liaison, Shane Pack,

at shane.pack at boston.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket number 1447, order for a hearing to discuss electrical equipment maintenance and utility safety. Matter was sponsored by Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata and was referred to the committee on August 6, 2025. Today I'm joined by my colleagues in order of arrival, Councilor Zed Flynn and the sponsor of the docket, Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata. I'd like to start off by thanking the Councilor, Coletta Zapata, for bringing this document before the Council. And thank you to our panelists for joining us today to share your knowledge and answer our questions. I look forward to the coming conversation. And I would like to now give an opportunity to the sponsor, Councilor, to give her opening remarks.

Thank you, Chair Pepen. I want to thank my colleague for being here today and thank all of you for taking the time to be here to discuss this really important issue. I also want to thank the residents of Charlestown and across the city who have joined us here today. or submit a testimony. It's been your voices and your experiences and your accountability that has pushed us forward and been the driving force behind today's hearing. On July 29, 2025, overhead electrical wires near Bartlett Street in Charlestown ignited during an extreme heat event, dropping sparks onto a car, damaging property, and plunging parts of the neighborhood into darkness. We are incredibly fortunate that no one was injured and our residents were there on scene and we had a bunch of, obviously the fire department, OEM, and various utility companies on scene to understand exactly what happened. In speaking with the families in the days following the incident, however, several themes emerged.

A lack of timely communication about what exactly happened, uncertainty about the root cause of the failure, confusion during the outage, and a deep sense of vulnerability about what would happen during the next heat wave or equipment malfunction. Today's docket is an opportunity to better understand how our electrical infrastructure is aging How extreme weather is stressing equipment and whether current inspection and maintenance practices are adequate for a city as dense and historic as Boston. We also must examine how residents are notified during these emergencies and whether our multi-agency response systems are functioning effectively. We were told that this particular street, due to the fact that these triple deckers were once single or two-family homes that were converted to three or four units, that the systems and the infrastructure around them was not upgraded to handle the amount of usage or overload that was taking place. So that's something that I want to dive into as well.

We'll begin testimony from the community. So I look forward to hearing from them to help shape the conversation. But then testimony from Public Works, the Public Improvement Commission, the Transportation Department, and Office of Emergency Management. You all play such a critical role. So you manage poles and conduits, you regulate street openings, you coordinate large-scale infrastructure projects, and lead emergency responses during outages and hazards. Later, we'll hear from utility companies such as Eversource, National Grid, and Verizon. These utility and infrastructure operators are responsible for maintaining overhead lines, conducting inspections, coordinating repairs, and providing timely information to city officials and the public. A core part of today's conversation will also focus on potential long-term solutions. There's been discussion about bringing electrical wires underground. I want to understand exactly what that means. What is the existing landscape? Do we do that in other neighborhoods? What will it take and how much will it cost if you have those numbers?

But ultimately, this hearing is about public safety. Residents deserve to know that when they walk down their block, the wires above them are safe, inspected, and capable of withstanding increasingly volatile weather patterns. So thank you. I'll leave it there. Your patience in allowing me a long opening remarks.

No, absolutely. I am personally a big fan of these type of hearings because as a district councillor, I know that same for Councillor Coletta, Zapata and to Councilor Flynn is that when something impacts our district, we wanna have a meeting about it and make sure that people are here. And I believe that Councilor Coletta, would you like to do two public testimony first before we go into the panel? Is that still the plan?

Sure. Okay.

Yeah, but before we do that, I'll allow Councilor Flynn, as well, a quick opening remarks.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is an important hearing. Looking forward to learning more about this issue and how residents were notified Especially during an emergency like this, it's important that residents are heard and respected and coordination is a critical aspect of emergency preparedness. I'm dealing with a similar situation in the south end with an elevator broken down in a BHA development and residents weren't notified. And communication is a critical part of city government notifying residents of exactly what is happening, why it's happening, when it's going to be fixed. So those are the issues and concerns I'm looking forward to hearing about. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councillor. Okay, at this time, as mentioned, I'm going to call up two... Community Advocates, I believe we have Amanda Zettel and Shannon Spence. And Nora Blake. Yes, you have two minutes.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Councillors. My name is Amanda Zettel, and I serve as president of the Charlestown Preservation Society. Charlestown is Facing a serious and preventable safety and equity challenge related to aging above ground electrical infrastructure in our historic, predominantly wood-framed neighborhood, The July 29, 2025 wire ignition and resulting vehicle fires showed that overhead lines in dense 19th century streets are not just an inconvenience when power fails, they are an escalating fire and public safety risk in the context of extreme heat and climate stress. The burden of this risk is not shared equally. The highest concentration of overhead wiring in Charlestown runs through blocks of older wood frame houses, while some better resourced areas have already been able to finance undergrounding.

This has created an inequitable pattern where the residents in wood-framed houses carry the greatest exposure to hazards, outages and visual blight. At the same time, Encore Boston Harbor's surrounding community agreement and the Charlestown Community Impact Fund were explicitly created to mitigate neighborhood impacts from the casino's operation including transportation and infrastructure effects in and around Charlestown. These funds are intended to improve safety, quality of life, and public infrastructure in precisely the places experiencing new burdens from regional traffic and development. We now have a rare opportunity to align these goals with a concrete project. From Spring 2026 through Fall 2028, the Boston Water and Sewer Commission will already be excavating, backfilling, and repaving streets in Charlestown. The Charlestown Preservation Society is advancing a focused ask that the City dig once and coordinate undergrounding the wires and installing extra

vacant underground conduit that could be leveraged in the future by other utilities to avoid duplicative street disruption and to capture economies of scale. The proposal is to bury overhead utility lines in the areas with planned work that requires a dig up of public streets. In the spring of 2026, approximately .453 miles of the 4 miles above ground wires will be dug up to replace water and sewer lines. School Street from Main to Bunker Hill, Bartlett Street from Pearl to Walker, and Vine Street from Chelsea to Bunker Hill in front of the Kennedy Center. Using commonly accepted ranges for similar urban projects, the estimated budget for this .453 mile segment is approximately $906,000 to $2.7 million. With careful design and coordination, this segment can also be planned to accommodate installing extra vacant underground conduit for telecommunications where feasible, further reducing long-term disruption and visual clutter.

The primary ask today is that the council support... Can you start wrapping up, Amanda?

I'm sorry? Just start wrapping up. Sure.

So our primary ask The task is that the Council support dedicating a portion of Charlestown's Encore-related mitigation and community impact funds to this underground utility pilot. By formally tying this .453 mile undergrounding effort to both Boston Water and Sewer Project Schedule and the Encore Community Impact Framework, Boston can use existing dedicated mitigation resources to deliver a safer, more resilient and more visually cohesive public realm for Charlestown. Thank you for your time and for your leadership in making sure Charlestown receives Thank you. Okay.

Next.

Hi, I'm Shannon Felton Spence. I live at 19 Russell Street. Councilor Zapata, Council President-Elect, thank you for calling us. And thank you for your leadership in this public hearing and for walking those blocks with us in the summer along with our state representative. A few weeks later, I also walked the mayor down the same route to show her the public safety hazard that is Charlestown's Outdated and increasingly dangerous overhead utilities. But I'm here today because momentum has stalled since those walkthroughs while the dangerous incidents have actually increased. Since August, I have documented personally, but my neighbors have others, three instances. And don't worry, I have a pack for everyone in this room. of failures so number one on Russell Street just a few weeks ago a burned overloaded wire that failed and fell to the sidewalk it was inches from front doors and strollers there was only a loose strip of caution tape that marked the danger

This was called into 911, but it did stay unattached for several days. On Sullivan Street, as recently as last week, there was a fully downed wire with a telecommunications splice that was hanging down, again marked with a single piece of caution tape. A child on a scooter or running ahead could reach that before their parent even realized that that was hanging down. And on Walker Street just several weeks ago there was a 911 call reporting that a child was electrically shocked in front of their elementary school. That's the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and the Warren Prescott Preschool. So this is exactly what we warned about in August, and not just me, also the fire commissioner who walked down those streets and confirmed our worst fears. and what I wrote about in the Boston Herald just after the mayor walked through the streets. So as my neighbor said, Charlestown is one of Boston's densest and most historic neighborhoods. The section of our neighborhood that is in most danger is made up of tightly packed wooden row homes that are attached and they're over 150 years old.

And according to the city's own data, we have the highest share of young children in the city. In August, we really did seem like we had some momentum, unprecedented alignment. You, Representative Ryan, Eversource Engineering staff, the mayor's office, and the residents were all standing together. But since then, there's been no published timeline, no coordinated plan, and no accountability from the utilities, although I will note that Eversource has hosted an occasional coffee hour. When we press the utility companies for answers, they point to the cost and the coordination as the barriers to undergrounding. Both, by my estimate, both can be addressed and should be addressed by City Hall and City Hall's leadership. I want to be clear that mitigation in this case is only a band-aid. You can tighten a wire, you can rehang a line, you can wrap something in tape, but the system itself remains really, really unsafe and outdated by design. This neighborhood has been getting Band-Aids for 70 years to its utility grid. What Charlestown needs is a phased, long-term plan to undergrounding.

So today, I'm asking for one clear, actionable step, and that's reestablishing a formal, time-bound coordination process led by this council that will require Eversource, Verizon, Comcast, RCN Astound, and National Grid and the administration to produce a public timeline for immediate risk mitigation and to begin undergrounding assessment. And the mayor had committed to that on August 16th. Haven't heard anything. We need a plan on paper with milestones, deadlines, and responsible parties because right now children are walking and living under wires that could frankly kill them. This is my favorite line in the book, so I'll say it here on the record. Boston buried a freeway. We can bury a couple miles of utility lines. We can do it. So thank you, Councillor Zapata. Thank you for treating this with the urgency that our families deserve.

Thank you. We have one more.

Hi, I thought I'd start with pictures. This was the fire. and the car on fire and the lines. So I want to say a big thank you to the fire department that got there right away, but it took over a half hour for Eversource to get there. No fault of their own. Traffic's terrible. But the fire department couldn't do anything. My name is Nora Blake. I live around the corner. I'm here to urge the city of Boston to work with Eversource on a long overdue and life-saving priority. bearing the overhead electrical lines in Charlestown. In July 2025, our neighborhood experienced an electrical fire that affected over 100 residents. Boston Fire arrived promptly and was ready to act, but they could not safely fight the fire for more than 30 minutes because overhead electric lights remained energized. Eversource was unable to respond quickly enough to shut off power, leaving residents and firefighters exposed to unacceptable risk. That delay allowed the fire to spread. and cause significant greater damage.

For me, the crisis was deeply personal. As I arrived home from receiving treatment for stage four ovarian cancer at Mass General, On a very hot and muggy day, my lights suddenly flickered and my air conditioning support stopped. I soon learned there was a large electrical fire around the block. It was my first chemo treatment and a new course of therapy, and my immediate concern was whether I'd be able to get back to the hospital if I experienced complications. As the day wore on, I battled not only the fear and uncertainty of the unfolding fire, but also the intense heat and chemo side effects made worse by the loss of cooling in my home. No resident, and certainly no medically fragile resident, should be in that position. Charlestown is a thickly settled historic neighborhood mostly built of wood-framed homes, many of them attached or separated by only a few feet. Our density means a single spark can turn into a block-level catastrophe in minutes. When overhead lines fall, arc, or obstruct firefighting equipment, the consequences multiply.

The stakes are getting higher, not lower, as more residents adopt electric vehicles, including lithium, iron, Battery cars like Telso's. Any fire involved, a damaged EV or charging equipment becomes much more dangerous. So I'll wrap it up because it's going, you know, I'm losing time, but as you can see, If this had been a Tulsa and the fire department couldn't go near it for half an hour, I think we would have had a pretty big catastrophe. And I also thought the Texas floods that year, In 2025, at this Camp Mystic where those kids all died and people decided not to do the safety, the more safe thing. The less political thing, and I just think of Charlestown. And I talked about my story as a cancer victim. I can't imagine being a mother with an infant stuck in one of those houses. So thank you very much for your time, and I'll submit my testimony. Thank you.

Okay. I also want to acknowledge that we've been joined by Councillor Worrell and Councillor Fitzgerald. Thank you so much for joining us. At this time, I would like to introduce the first panel. which is the admin panel and please introduce yourselves and you can provide your opening statements or presentation.

I'm Eddie Hesford. I'm the chief engineer from the City of Austin Transportation Department.

I'm Jamie Clemente, supervisor of construction inspection unit for PWD.

Good afternoon. Matt Carney, deputy chief with the Boston Office of Emergency Management.

Todd Lyming, chief engineer of the city's public improvement commission.

Thank you all. Do you have any opening presentation? Or straight to Q&A? Q&A is fine with me. Okay. Then we'll start with lead sponsor, and then we'll go by order of arrival. So I'm going to give my colleagues six minutes for the first round, and then obviously if we need more, we can do more.

Thank you.

So I'll start with Councilor Calero.

Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. I do have questions for each and every one of you. So I'll do my best to keep it under six minutes. But thank you for being here. And I appreciate Todd in particular. I apologize. either if more folks from your various departments were there on scene but we did that walkthrough and it was very informative for me personally to have you there and understanding PW's role in coordinating with utilities, poles, on-street construction, when we do dig up a street, electrical crossings, All of that. So if you can just give us a broad overview of what your particular role is, specifically with coordinating with utilities. on conduits, these electrical crossings, and then also if public works, or this could be for Jamie maybe, if public works are tracking areas of repeated outage or equipment degradation.

Sure. So the Public Improvement Commission, also known as the PIC, acts as the essentially the owners, landlords, and managers of all of the public rights of way throughout the city. So the public streets and sidewalks, and that includes all of the infrastructure, both public and private within those rights of way. When utility companies are looking to install new infrastructure within streets, whether that's below ground or above ground, they do need to go through standard review processes and many others. So what the PIC is reviewing for is whether the desired infrastructure Thank you. Thank you.

We issue what's called a grant of location, and that is essentially a license that allows for specifically the location that the utility company has requested. Typically, the plans that we review are for underground infrastructure, new pipes, distribution lines, transmission lines. When it comes to infrastructure, occasionally there are underground transformers, or other infrastructure that utility companies request. It is important to note that the PIC is reviewing, as I said, for the location of this utility infrastructure. And we are not weighing in as to the appropriateness of the infrastructure itself or the viability of that infrastructure. were the need for that infrastructure.

We rely on the utility companies to determine that using their own design professionals and also the state's TPU to determine whether the infrastructure that's going in these streets is the appropriate type of utility infrastructure that should be going in there.

OK, and just to clarify, we did reach out to the DPU to try to get them here and provide a response. They did not provide a response. I just want to put that on record. My second question may be for you or maybe Jamie. Do you folks track areas of repeated outages or equipment degradation, or is that something that strictly falls within the DPU as well, or the utility companies themselves?

PIC does not track that at all. I don't speak for Jamie. We don't either.

Okay, do we know if that's DPU?

I would imagine DPU to keep track of that.

Okay, and then you had talked about trying to, or the PIC reviewing for the location and understanding what that might mean to open up the street and what that means for the city. Could you provide us Just an overview of what neighborhoods currently have wires under the ground now, why did it happen there and not other places, and I guess what it would Thank you.

Sure. So it's not necessarily, my understanding at least, is that we don't necessarily have set neighborhoods that are designated as underground neighborhoods. We look at it more as roadway corridors. So we might say, for example, American Legion Highway in West Roxbury and Mattapan. As of 20 years ago, most of the electrical wires, to my understanding, were overhead. But over the past two decades, we worked with the utility companies to put some of those lines underground. The big challenge with putting overhead utilities underground is the cost for the actual construction to open up the streets and put those underground. One of the other big issues is finding the space.

A lot of our streets throughout the city, especially some of the older neighborhoods, such as Charlestown, where the streets are very narrow, there's not a lot of room. Utility lines that are already, you know, kind of crisscrossing through all the streets and finding the physical space to be able to fit new infrastructure can be very challenging. and then finally the cost to the abutters can be prohibitive in a lot of situations. I won't speak to exactly how those costs break down. I would leave that to the utility company representatives. But if you imagine that a home has multiple overhead connections for electrical and telecom and all of those other things, all of those connections need to be put underground as well. And that usually means Coring through the building's basement, which can be expensive, and my understanding is portions of those costs are required to be passed on to the services or the abutters, so.

You would have to core through every single basement for every single house?

And sometimes multiple times.

Okay, and how long would the street need to be open for?

I can't speak to that.

Okay, and then obviously I'll ask utility companies about costs. I have so many questions, but I'll be respectful.

We could do a second round. All right. Councilor Flynn.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the administration team that's here. I listen to the Public testimony and residents mentioned that the fire department responded very quickly, so I want to acknowledge the fire department response. Matthew, were you on scene? or was Emergency Management on scene?

I'm not sure. I personally was not. I can look into that, Councillor, and see if... Was the Chief on scene? That I'm not sure. I can look into that and find out for that instance. Who was on scene from emergency management? For this instance, Councillor, I'm not sure who was there in this specific incident. Who would know that information? I can look into that after this.

What is your message today on this issue?

What do you mean by that, Councillor?

You hear as a panelist, what is the message of emergency management as it relates to Thank you.

Thank you. Secondary needs are of the residents or those impacted by it. So when we work with utility companies in an instance, usually it's on the broader outage. broader outages that happen it's getting a sense of what the estimated time of restoration is and then seeing if there's emergency shelters in this instance in July if there's cooling or cooling centers that need to be opened up So just trying to understand the impacts to residents. For just one downed wire, typically that's not something our office would respond to, but understanding the timing on scene, this may have been something that we ended up going to.

Does emergency management respond to these types of emergencies? Because it does have a major impact on communicating with various city departments With utility companies, and especially residents, but they would have a specific responsibility. Isn't that accurate?

That is correct. If their impacts were broad enough to necessitate the need for, like I said, some type of mass care services or if there was a A large number of residents impacted where we may need to look at temporary emergency sheltering situations. That's when the fire department will reach out to us.

That's why I want to focus on this. Is emergency management similar to the police and fire transportation? Is it 24-7? Yes. So how do we not know if someone from emergency management did not respond?

Just because there's fires and incidences across the city every day that take place and unless there's that larger need for resident support, we wouldn't be notified.

But I think there was need for Residents support. Two residents mentioned that they were concerned for public safety, their quality of life, but many residents, as I understand it, have had Medical issues and not having this power for their homes would impact their health. Maybe seniors, maybe young children, maybe people that Going through difficult medical situations. But that would be communicating is a critical aspect of emergency management, ensuring residents know exactly what to do, who they can contact, How emergency management could contact the utility companies, what the timing would be, if people needed to get their cars off the scene, they needed to get to a hospital, if there was coordination that needs to take place.

between various city departments and residence neighborhood organizations. That would be the role of emergency management. Is that accurate? Yes, that is accurate. Okay. I don't have anything else to say. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Councillor.

Fitzgerald.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you all for being here today. Yeah, I don't know. I'm just reading over the order for the hearing again and trying to think of Sort of where we stand and this is an opportunity to discuss areas in Boston where underground electrical equipment is active and assess opportunities for this type of investment. I know Councilor Coletta Zapata spoke to sort of what that means and pouring into every house and everything, but is that Is that something on a state and federal scale too that we would have to check in with if the city wanted to go to all underground or is that completely within our jurisdiction to allow that?

I can speak to that. I think we as a city would have the authority to allow all or some utilities to go underground. It just becomes a matter of those factors that I was mentioning earlier. You know, cost borne by the utility companies, cost borne by all the abutters, whether the space, and then also it becomes a matter of like, Do we want nearly every street in the city continuously ripped up over the course of however many years it would take to do all that work?

Yeah. I agree and having some of the a lot of the streets ripped up in all our neighborhoods already and how long it takes to put back together I'm not sure that is something that would be a from a constituent service perspective either an ideal Way to go. Yeah, I think more of my questions might be for more technical questions to the utility folks themselves. So I'll yield my time chair and I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you guys for everything.

Thank you, Councillor. Okay. Um, Councillor Brady, welcome. Um, you have, if you want six minutes to ask questions or,

I'm sorry I'm late. I had another meeting. I'll probably try and catch up with the conversation at this point. I had a question, and I realize this is not the place to ask about it. Electronic speed repairs of electronic equipment, speed monitors on the roads. We have a whole garage full of them, but none of them are working. It's not much use. But I realize that's probably another department. and the other question was about putting power lines underground and utility lines underground. Some streets are, there's a lot of, a lot of, And it's also the cost to the homeowner. If you put the line, it's underground, but then the existing line come in on the second floor of the house, the owner has to bear that cost, as I understand. Is that correct?

Yeah, so I won't speak to exactly how all of those costs are split. I would leave that to my contemporaries at the utility companies to let you know how that would work out. In general terms, there would be a cost to put the The main duck banks underground and then a separate cost to cut all of those new connections from those underground duck banks into each of the individual homes or businesses. That, as I mentioned, would require typically Coring through the basements of those homes in order to get the services in there.

And not all costs would be borne by the homeowners.

Or a split. It's split somehow. I can't speak intelligently to exactly how that split will work.

Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor. We're going to go to second rounds of questions because I know Councilor Coletta has more questions for this panel.

Yes, I have a lot more. Again, thank you for being here and your answers to my first round. Building on something you had said earlier, For the PIC, so you don't weigh in on the appropriateness or the need for the infrastructure. I totally understand that we are within various jurisdictions federal supersedes state, which supersedes city. You had talked about American Legion Highway as an example where you had worked with the utility company to put those lines underground. understanding that you don't weigh in for the appropriateness or the need for the infrastructure do you weigh in to with them to make the decision to ultimately put the wires underground like is that a shared and so forth. So I think it's really important for us to think about how we're going to do this endeavor or do they come to you and say, we want to put these wires underground? What reasonings do they give? What sort of levers does the city have? How do we analyze those decisions?

To be perfectly transparent, the American Legion Highway project was before my time by a little bit, so I cannot take any credit for that or blame. Typically, we as the PIC, at least, are not going out to utility companies and saying, hey, you should do this or that to your infrastructure. We rely on them to come to us and say, we want to put You know, the stretch of conduit underground or we have a new main line that we need to install or whatever the case might be. And we respond to the plans that they present to us and the projects that they propose to us. I don't want to. speak for too much as to how they decide what areas they want to put underground, which ones they don't. I would definitely refer that question to the utility companies and they would be able to tell you a little bit more specifically as to you know how they prioritize different sections of the city and neighborhoods and corridors and that type of thing.

So they just come to you with plans And there's no eligibility criteria that the city puts through. You say, yep, OK. I mean, you review it, obviously, if there's room and all of that. But that's essentially how that

Correct. Yeah, we are not typically in the business of proposing ideas or soliciting new projects. We rely on the utility companies or whoever it is who's proposing changes to the public rights of way They're typically responsible for all of the survey and engineering and all of that stuff that goes into those plans ahead of time. And then we review those plans prepared by the appropriate design professionals to make sure that Everything that they're looking to do can fit and is not going to conflict with anything else that we have going on in the streets.

What are the costs borne by the city for something like that? They come to you with the engineering and the designs and all of that. My guess is that you would have compliance managers like the incredible Jamie Clemente here go out there and review, right? That's city cost. Are there any other additional costs beyond personnel that we take on because of that?

um the city definitely takes on you know the expense of you know the personnel for the review and you know these projects are brought to the commission and you know those folks you know spend quite a bit of time reviewing the projects and all of that But other than that, there typically are not, to my knowledge, too many financial implications for the city. projects have various permit fees and deposits and all of that stuff to ensure that you know what the utility companies are doing and what their contractors are doing are appropriate and in line with you know what we're telling them that they can do but it's to my knowledge at least we're not going out and You know splitting the cost of putting this infrastructure in that's going to be private and used by these private companies to service the residents.

Okay, thank you. And transitioning to Ed and Jamie, thank you so much for being here. Can you just talk a little bit about your role and how you interact with utility companies and Anything that not necessarily had to do with just this incident, but anything related to electrical equipment or utility companies digging up in the ground, how you, you know, Ed, my understanding is that You approve the permits. Jamie, you go out there, you ensure compliance. But if you can just elaborate on your role and how your work intersects with what we're talking about here today, I think it would be helpful.

So I think from the transportation side of the house, when a utility company, be it National Grid, Eversource, Procinity, any of those, they're looking to upgrade and provide more resilient services for the residents. They come in with a plan that my engineers take a look at the construction management aspect of that plan, how the work is proceeded, how it's done, how it's phased to lessen the impact on the community. and the local businesses in the area. So we'll take a look at the plan and basically write a traffic approval based on that construction manner plan and traffic manner plan. And then we'll go down to Public Works for the actual permitting. and then Jamie and his folks take it over to enforce the rules and regulations of that permit in the spirit of the permit itself. So Jamie and I, We're joined at the hip.

We talk every day, even on weekends and nights, and going over to make sure that things are followed through. So from the transportation side of the house, It's a review of the general construction plan and how we're going to phase the construction to lessen the impacts on the residents and working with the utilities that are sitting around here right now.

And just really quick before we go to Jamie, and thank you because you've taken my calls on Sundays too, so I appreciate it. Describe to me what What it has been like in the event, have you ever overseen the burying of electrical wires before and what has that looked like in terms of traffic management?

So a lot of the major transmission projects, like American Legion was part of the Canton to K Street in South Boston major transmission project. That's 115 kV. Distribution Lane, and it's very work-intensive, very specialized work because it's oil-cooled-filled conduit that, you know, there's many phases of work in how that project gets through. That product, I believe it was actually approved by the ISO New England, which is the overall You know, agency that sees all the major distribution electrical lines in New England that goes on. They actually pay for a portion, and a lot of that project was built in with PIC approval was the mitigation of reconstructing American Legion Highway.

We did, you know, we also did... The intersection of Dorchester Avenue, Old Colony, Dorchester Avenue, Preble, you know, that whole intersection was done as part of mitigation under that project, as well as some other things as they ran that project. at Project Thrill. So that's kind of where that came from. but a lot of the smaller the upgrades the basically upgrading all the services and utilities to bring them in to you know Code that we deal with all the time. We feel it's very important for the residents and people of Boston in general that we have these reliable services and they spend a lot of money in the infrastructure. We look at it and make sure that we can You know, do it safely, you know, through the traffic management plan. I hope that answers your question.

It does, and I know my time is out, but Jamie, if you can just add on that, and you go down there and you physically see the construction site, can you just talk in addition to the question that I asked earlier? The impact of quality of life that you see to residents and their ability to move about and just live their lives, go to school, go to work, what you see on a daily basis, that would be helpful.

So I have a team of inspectors underneath me as I'm driving around the city as well. So we inspect everything from the ground up, compliance from the start, whether the traffic management plan to just the... The layout of the traffic management plan if you know roadways being shut down or if a sidewalks being shut down to take a look at it making sure they're following the right procedures. you know not closing streets down keeping especially keeping the site clean and clear of whatever traffic is going through especially if they're working at an intersection making sure the crosswalks are you know accessible and Clean, you know, especially working around the school. Ed does a fantastic job with that, you know, starting late times and we encourage them. They have to speak to

You know, headmasters, principals to let them know what's going on, the amount of work that's going on, to have open communication with them as well, you know, Children going to school in the morning and then when there's dismissal at the end of the day. The bigger thing is just making sure that the job is going smoothly in compliance with through the workday, and especially at the end afterwards, is there roadway plates? Are they burned correctly? Is the equipment packed? You know, not too close to a crosswalk. Is it, you know, coned off correctly? Is there debris? Was the job site swept at the end? You know, nothing left in the roadway, crosswalk, sidewalks. So everybody has accessibility around to drive, to walk. and everything else.

I have another round of questions, but I don't know if anybody else has questions.

I'll give you permission to finish your questions.

Thank you. So you're painting a picture where it really is, it's intensive, this work to do. And at any given point, I mean, how many inspectors do you have underneath you, Jamie?

So I have eight, then we cut it down in the winter time because work slows down during moratorium. So I'll have four. and like I said the work slows down you know it could be 300 plus 400 plus jobs going on throughout you know the height and then it slows down to over 100 you know Just over 100 or almost 200 during the winter, depending on the weather. So we're pretty much spread out. I mean, you know, we're not shorthanded, but shorthanded for the amount that we have to go through. One of my inspectors will take over a couple of districts and visit all these sites, you know, throughout the day as well.

And I do, I appreciate you both being here. We did reach out to Chief to be here as well because I wanted to talk through, I'm not sure if any of you can answer it, but talking through, like looking forward and trying to Be proactive about this work. Where are we already digging up streets? What streets are already planned? I know that you coordinate with utilities to ensure that their work is done because you've got to make sure that Boston Water and Sewer gets there, then National Grid, then Eversource, or whatever the order is. and while we're thinking about this can we have a simultaneous conversation of looking at our above ground infrastructure and while the street is already open so it's not necessarily burdensome and talking through the impacts of quality of life That residents see when this sort of thing is happening, if we can just get it done all at once. What is the likelihood of that happening moving forward, if anybody can talk about that?

I think a lot of that happens currently. Obviously, when water and sewer has a big water main project, they have to get the gas lines out of there right away, the encroachment. on those utilities. So we know that that is the process. So you're going to get an actual grid in there. They're going to relocate their conduits. And then we're going to get water and sewer. And we tried to do that in phasing it to bring them up behind as that work goes on. So they're not out there for years. And it becomes very challenging. But there is a lot of cooperation with the utilities, with, say, Joe Carroll from National Grid, with the water and soil, Peter Salvatore, or those folks in Sullivan. So that happens on a, right now is a perfect example where we're in the winter months We're looking at the capital plans for all these utilities, be it Eversource, be it for water and sewer, et cetera.

Let's get our plan together so that we know during construction season how we're going to sequence this work to make it work so it's not a cluster. It doesn't know, basically, the residents aren't up in arms about that. Mayor Kite, Now we go through these plans and look at what the capital projects are as these utilities come to upgrade the reliance of their utilities. So that does happen.

and I do, sorry, go ahead.

Two quick things building off of what Ed just mentioned. Public Works does a great job of overseeing COBOX, which is the City of Boston Utility Coordination System, which is a database that all projects, utility and otherwise, do need to have themselves entered into. And the purpose of that is to identify projects that might have overlapping limits to try to coordinate the trenching that might need to happen. separate from that the PIC does have a long-standing city shadow policy which allows us to require primarily telecommunication companies to install vacant Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And it also conserves the space, which, you know, is always an issue in our very congested streets.

Thank you. Yeah, and I have a lot of questions for utility companies when they come down. I'm grateful that they're here. Go ahead, Chair. I do have questions for Matt after.

Okay, perfect. We'll go with Councilor Flynn, Fitzgerald, and then Breadon.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just for the record, you guys mentioned a few times you referencing the chief. The chief of what department? Chief of Streets. Okay, okay. And I know I'm just looking at the hearing order. There must be a thorough review, it continues, but of emergency response plans. That's what I'm focused on because the neighborhood I represent, Chinatown, is very similar in a way to Chinatown, very dense neighborhood. So these issues are important. So after the fire department left, put out the fire, who was responsible at the city level? Who was the senior person? on site after the fire department left. Dealing with this emergency.

I believe that the fire department is the incident commander. when that type of situation happens. So I believe when I was out there, I was out there on that morning, the fire department was still in place, you know, monitoring, you know, what Eversource was doing. So they were the incident commander at the time.

And then after the fire is out and the fire does their investigation, I'm trying to get at how does the improvements take place to deal with what has been damaged, obviously. So is there a senior city official on site that kind of coordinates that?

I would think that that would be the utility company to themselves to assess that and bring to the city what the repair is and what the course of action is going to be to make that safe and bring it in compliance with their electrical code.

So if it happened on a weekend, there would be a city official that would be on scene. But from what department would that be? Would that be Public Works? Would that be... Public Transportation, would it be Emergency Management? Who would the utility companies work with to coordinate these issues? Who's the senior person on site?

So we would respond to just Given information up, I'd pass it along to Chief Engineer Norman Parks, along with an email with the progress, what is going on, would have conversations with Eversource to find out a summary of what happened What's going to take place, the repair times and whatever else? And I pass information up at that point. As long as the area is safe and they start making repairs, then they just They pull permits at that point to start their repairs, whether it's the occupancy to work on the pole, because there's no excavation there at that point, something like that. so they'll get an occupancy permit to start the repairs. We check in with them to find out the progress that's taking place and I pass it up through Chief of Streets, The Deputy Chief, pass it on to Norman Parks. Also, as well, Superintendent Michael Brohl.

I put Ed on the email, permits, Kathy, and so on. just so everybody's kind of, and usually Ed is out there as well having his own assessment of what's going on further.

Was the State Department of Public Utilities, they play a responsibility here, were they on scene? I don't know at that point.

Not to my recollection.

But they would be a key partner, wouldn't they? Yes. Okay. I believe so, sure. And what would their role be, Ed? I know you've... You've been around a long time on these issues and you do a tremendous job, but what would the role of public utilities be?

So the DPU is basically the authority from the state level that oversees the actual electrical inspection. The electrical portion of that, whereas as Todd has mentioned that we're just giving them the space for the utility, but the actual oversight of the electrical installation and oversight is through DPU.

Okay, so that's what I was trying to get at at the beginning. So it would really be a state, they would play a major responsibility as well, dealing with how we move forward with a major public safety issue such as this. The senior person from Department of Public Utilities. So are we communicating with them?

The utility company is required to notify DPU and the city of the incident.

Okay. And just going back to the hearing order, Emergency Response Plans. What are the lessons learned here? How does this not happen again? Or how do we improve coordination from city and state to residents and and neighborhood organizations and hospitals. What are the lessons learned?

I think it's a good point and a fair question. Jamie and myself specifically, I reached out to Eversource directly and the folks in intergovernmental on this issue of communication. We've been over to Mass Ave, to the headquarters, on a couple of different occasions to give to their senior field personnel what the proper protocol is In incidents like that and notifications and that has been happening over the last Three or four months on that. So we physically have gone to that building and gone into their personnel to apprise them of what we expect as a city of their notifications and timeliness. and was specifically about this incident in Charleston.

Okay. So do we have a written standard operating procedure manual about what steps take place When this happens, so, you know, if you guys aren't around, we know exactly what happens if it happens in East Boston, happens in South Boston, happens in West Roxbury or Roxbury. Do we have that type of manual that way everyone's on the same page?

So I think what we've done is we've developed a online emergency notification that basically utility, the company responding, Basically, you can have their laptop and they type in the information of what the emergency expected incident, what the duration is, and it goes out. It's an email blast. It's going to go out to everybody so that nothing like this will happen again.

and that's based on what happened in Charlestown.

A lot of it is definitely what happened in Charlestown.

Thank you. Thank you, Ed, for explaining that to me. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Councillor Fitzgerald.

Thank you, Chair. I did have a question on what the typical protocol to report and respond to a downed wire is, but Councilor Flynn stole that question like someone stole Ed Hesford's hat. I didn't recognize you for a sec there, Ed. I got you to laugh. That's all I'm at. That's one. Again, most of my questions are for the utility companies, but does the city have a stance? I know just because we're talking about some overhead wires, double poles. What is the city's stance on those in terms of safety, you know, when we just slap another one up next to it? Does the city have an official stance on those? If they allow, do we believe that's the safest way forward? Just trying to think of ways to prevent future wires from coming down.

So the notion of a double pole is, in theory, at least supposed to be temporary. That's only supposed to be in place for a relatively short period of time until each of the respective utility companies come and transfer their lines from the old pole to the new pole. That can take time. The transfers need to go in order I believe from the top down and there are so many polls it's difficult for the utility companies to know which ones to prioritize but they do handle those transfers and their eventual removal of the secondary poles that are no longer needed.

Has there ever been an incident where a double pole Thank you very much, Chairman. Thank you guys for your time. Thank you.

Brayden. I think you stole my double poll question. When you see a utility pole tipping, how far does it go before you have to put a double pole in, or what's the parameters? Occasionally I just see a solo poem going like, wait, what's that story?

So the utility company, whichever company is the primary owner of the pole, usually it's either EverSource or Verizon. They're the ones to go out and assess the structural stability of the poles and decide when a pole needs to be replaced. And the Double pole, the quote unquote double pole, the second pole is supposed to be a replacement. So the original one is there maybe leaning or maybe just be old or maybe too short or whatever the case might be. and the utility company would install a new pole and transfer the old lines onto the new one. So it's only during that interim period that you should be seeing two poles out there.

And you said that's expected to be a fairly short period of time, How long is a piece of string?

It's a very relative term. I don't have a good answer for that. It can sometimes be relatively quick, sometimes take a number of years. It depends on how many attachments are on the pole, where it is, how highly they prioritize the need to get rid of the original pole.

When we dig up the road, we usually get everybody in. So I had a question about Lake Street in Brighton. It started in 2020 and now we're coming up to 2026. Do we have an estimated time of when that Lake Street will be completely finished the whole way down from Commonwealth down to, because I think National Grid was in there, Water and Sewer was in there, maybe it wasn't our Water and Sewer, it might have been Massachusetts, and then Eversource as in there. Any chance, any date of when we might think that to be finished? I know they've got down as far as Kenrick Street now, so they're making progress, but it's been a long time.

I can't speak to that.

Well, maybe somebody else could.

Yeah, it'll be sometime next year. There's been a lot ongoing, like you said, water and sword. MWRA played a piece in that. Boston Water and Soar. Then there was a connection right there at, oh, I want to say Lakeshore Road. There was one of the mains that was going kind of underneath, or they had to kind of reroute the spot. It was an MWRA. They had to wait to get a Boston Water and Soil had to wait to get a permit from MWRA, the state, to make a connection there. So there was them, there was clearly National Grid. We did have some of the roadway paved down, you know, Some of the same, but they should be this year.

Is the intention to go the whole way down to Washington Street? It doesn't have to go the whole way down to Washington Street? Yeah, I think so.

For the restoration more? Yeah. Oh, yeah. That is the plan, yes.

And does it go further beyond Washington Street? Does it go down Beechcroft then?

That I can't answer right now, but I know Lake Street is planned.

I know this was one of the first meetings we dealt with before COVID when I was elected. It's good to know that it's going to come to an end soon. Very good. Thank you. You're welcome.

Thank you, Councillor. Okay, I know Councilor Calderas has one more question.

For you, Matt, I was trying to make my way through, okay, what does it actually look like when we put these wires underground and trying to think through that and what the existing landscape looks like, but The day of coordination, and my colleague has gotten to some of these questions, so I appreciate that. I'll reserve my question for the day of response where fire got there quickly. It took a little bit to get the utility company there. They had to give approval to something. That's still something I'm trying to work out. But for you as OEM, just walk me through at what level does OEM come into the conversation like what is what is the policy because you've been on site many times and I appreciate it at 11 midnight one in the morning with fires where people are displaced you have physically been there so in an instance where this is an emergency Who is responsible for contacting your office? And I don't know if you can talk about this. Maybe it's a similar question. But do you know if that happened the day of?

And does this rise to the level in which OEM would then

Yeah, utility disruptions or downed wires, it's very much a case-by-case instance just due to the nature of what may happen and the impacts to the area. I don't believe we were notified in this this instant and we I don't think we had anyone out there typically if there's an outage impacting a larger neighborhood or a larger number of residents Eversource or National Grid, they'll give us a call and we'll begin working with them. They also call three on one and that'll trigger a kind of a notification email to a lot of City departments that may be directly or indirectly impacted. For the on-scene, that's an area where we would look to our public safety partners to reach out to us through our duty officer,

Program, so we've got someone who's on call 24-7 if there are unmet needs or the incident is rising to a level where they need additional resources or our support if it may be some type of a and emergency sheltering situation. So in this where if the wires are down and they're waiting on every source to get on scene to cut the power so they can put the fire out, Flynn, and folks are just kind of sheltering in place, that wouldn't necessarily be an instance where we would come in. To Councilor Flynn's point, if there were a number of known vulnerable residents that had immediate needs and Boston EMS weren't able to and many more. and that's typically where we would come in.

Just a down wire wouldn't be enough of a trigger for us to go out on scene initially. It's usually when someone is there and recognizes that this may be growing beyond that responding agency's capacity where we might be able to step in and help with that coordination.

Okay, and so then the communication flows upward from either fire, EMS, or the police.

Yeah, and that can either come in to us directly or when that goes out they'll notify 311 and one of their broader emails goes out that that's also another trigger for us to kind of look at it, get a sense of what's going on and try to assess if there might be any additional impacts where we might be able to help support or where we might be needed.

Okay. How does ONS factor into this?

They get noted their neighborhood liaisons get notified whenever there's displacements. So again, this is a and it's a little bit more straightforward with with fires because Fire Department shows up, they see the building, and they're able to make that call and get ONS, the neighborhood liaison, on scene. The water main breaks, utility disruptions, or downed wires are another one of those tricky areas where that process is More so incident by incident, and we rely on the folks on scene to escalate that need if there is one.

And then my last question, just thinking longer term, your department's capacity to respond to just thinking about how frequent we have more severe weather and how Heat is really becoming, I mean it's always been an issue, but heat conditions are getting worse and worse for our residents. What has been your assessment in your ability to manage Longer and more widespread outages due to severe weather patterns or severe heat across the city.

Yeah, it's a little bit easier for us when we have the known events, right, extreme heat, We have a couple days typically where we can gear up and put more staff on call and begin that coordination across the city and with our external partners to Open those lines of communication if something were to occur. These no-notice events such as this one that we're talking about is a little bit more difficult for our We're a staff of 22 for our on-call staff, maybe 13, 14 folks. I'd say half of them, their day-to-day job is more admin, grants management related. We don't necessarily have the capacity to send somebody out to these just to get eyes on it every time there is an incident. When we feel the need that there is, it's usually myself or Our Chief, Chief Adrian Jordan, who's going out.

So that's one of the challenges that we have is recognizing the increasing number of these incidents and the impacts that they may serve and our ability to be proactive is is definitely a challenge and I mean we're 93% grant funded. Federal funding is a huge topic of consideration so that's another thing that we're looking at is how do we continue to maintain our level of and that's typically why We rely on our partners to give us that call because if we went to every down wire, every fire, folks would never be in the office. We don't have the staff dedicated to those functions to support that work.

Thank you everybody so much for your work and for being here. Thank you for filling in for those who got short notice that you had to be here. I really appreciate it and I'm just looking forward to the partnership moving forward and just future conversations. So thank you.

Thank you, Councilor. Any follow-ups? No? Any closing statements? No? All right. Well, thank you to the four of you for the work that you do for the city. Thank you for being here as a panel. You guys are dismissed. Thank you. Okay. Now we're going to move over to the expert panels. We're going to have Mike Fitzgerald, John, Pooja, Joe, Peter, and Ellen. Oh, instead of Peter, we have Victor. Victor Santana. Oh, and we have Alonzo. Sweet.

Thank you all so much for joining us. As you saw, I'm going to give you all the opportunity for opening statements or any presentation that you may all have, and then we'll go straight into the Q&A, if that's okay. So, Mike, if you want to start with the introduction, and then we can move down.

Hi, Mike Fitzgerald from Eversource Community Relations. I just want to thank you for the opportunity to help answer any questions you have on our emergency response process as well as our electrical operations procedures.

John Salm from Eversource as well in the construction, management of the construction.

Hey, good afternoon. Pooja Shah, I'm the Director of Engineering for the Boston and the Metro Boston area.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair. Joe Carroll, National Grid Gas Company. And good afternoon, fellow councillors.

Good afternoon, thank you. And I believe we have Ellen on Zoom. Ellen Cummings. Yes thank you. Hey, Ellen, can you hear us?

I can hear you now.

Perfect. Thank you. We're just doing a quick round of introductions. You're next.

Trying to get on camera. One second. Yes. Good afternoon, Councilor Pepén and Councilor Zapata. Ellen Cummings, Verizon State Government Affairs, Massachusetts.

Thank you. Okay, Dom, any of you have any opening statements or a presentation?

No opening statement from Eversource at this time. We're ready to jump right into questions if you are. Okay. National Grid.

in this area in Charlestown and I know Lake Street was brought up so we'll be able to talk about that one and anything else for the esteemed colleagues on the right hand side.

Perfect. Well thank you all again so much for being here. We'll jump right into the Q&A, starting again with the lead sponsor, and then we'll go in order of arrival. Councilor Cotto-Zapata, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Chair, and I want to thank our utility companies for coming back to these chambers. It feels like almost every other month I'm calling you in for something, which I feel speaks to The impact of your work obviously on the residents of Boston and just how close the partnership needs to be between all of you, the city, the state obviously. I do just want to say again that we did reach out to the DPU to be here. We did not receive any response, which is very frustrating. I will just say that. We asked for written testimony and they did not send any written testimony. And so some of my questions may be about your relationship with the DPU, how often you are working with them and and what the communication looks like just for our edification because that's at the state level I don't know anything about that I know more about you know the the role of Jamie and Ed and Todd and Matt, obviously. But some of my questions are centered around that. But I will start with the incident and event that brought us here today.

And so we'll start with Eversource. If you all can just talk about that day I was assuming that you may talk about this in an opening statement, but if you want to just provide any information about that. and then also the response afterwards after finding out that it had to do with your equipment.

Sure, so I can speak to that. So over the summer, July 29th I believe it was, When the overhead wire came down and was on fire, the call that came in was for an FPS3 call. FPS stands for Fire Police Standby, and 3 is the lowest tier emergency. which typically indicates that there's a partially blocked road. This call should have came in as an FPS2 and probably could have been escalated to an FPS1 once cars were caught fire due to the proximity so close to the homes. Our crew was late to arrive based on that emergency call and due to traffic. If the call did come in as an FPS2 or FPS1, we would have been able to remotely de-energize the area. which would have given Boston Fire more time to put that fire out.

Afterwards, I know John's team was on site to make immediate repairs and upgrades. Because we couldn't actually pinpoint what the problem was at that time, immediately after, out of an abundance of caution, John's team did upgrade the transformers in the area. And after that, as you know, we did do a walkthrough with community members to explain what may have happened and what work we had done after that. Additionally, we have done trainings with Boston Fire Dispatch, both in-person. We did an in-person training in early October, and we are also conducting online trainings for them continuously. just so that there is no mistake about those FPS calls.

Okay, so just to clarify, so it had come in as an FPS? Is that what this? Correct. FPS 1, sorry, 3.

Correct.

which means that there's a blockage in the road.

It's a partially blocked road. An FPS2 would be a fully blocked road. FPS1 means there's an imminent threat to life.

Okay. And these, you're doing trainings now with the fire department? What did that look like before? Were there any trainings or I guess like what led to the misclassification?

That I could only speculate on. I'm not sure why it was misclassified. And as far as trainings, we are, you know, I know Eversource is constantly reaching out to municipalities offering trainings, whether it's electrical, gas, how to respond to those calls.

Okay, and for maybe Verizon and National Grid, do you folks conduct any sort of emergency training with city or state officials regularly to ensure that the response is adequate and not misclassified?

Both on a yearly basis, both gas and electric. And then individual, when they reach out on certain topics that might be of issues that come up, They reach out. We'll either go to headquarters and speak with the deputy chiefs, chiefs from that end, or over to Moon Island. to work with the new cadets coming in to also provide opportunity for them to demonstrate what it is in terms of response, what should be done, what communication is needed, because that's a vital effort from where it is.

and then maybe for Ellen for Everison.

Yes, so we take safety very seriously, particularly with our joint pole on our Eversource. We do regular training on our own and with other partners along with municipalities when required. Most of that we do partnering with MEMA. Also, we are in contact mainly with the Department of Telecommunications and Cable regarding those issues as well too since we deal with them usually for telecommunications and cable.

OK, thank you. And I have a general question for all of you, if you can go through again. And I have limited time, so hopefully more rounds after this. I guess, what are the state regulations that require frequent inspections of your equipment? and at what frequency? Only because my question was specifically for Eversource where we were trying to understand exactly what the cause was. It sounds like it was Transformer. Please feel free to correct me on that.

So it was a heat event. It was extreme heat.

On the transformer.

I think on the line. It was on secondary, on the line.

It wasn't the transformer.

And you installed the transformer.

We did, yes.

Okay. Can you just talk through what the regular maintenance schedule looks like or inspection schedule? For each of you on your equipment, how frequent you go out or is it more of a reactive where something happens and then that's when you go and check to see if the equipment is safe or up to date.

So it depends on the equipment. The poles are inspected once every five years. We have a third party company that does that for us. Switches are inspected annually. individual secondary lines whenever there's work in the area those are inspected but there there is not like a set schedule for a secondary line

For National Grid, from the gas perspective, we do surveys. If you take a three year cycle, We ride it one year, walk it the next year, and ride it the third, and that's repeat. Meaning in a vehicle, we'll ride all the gas mains, that year one. The year two will walk all the gas services along with the mains. Year three we survey it again. So that's from that perspective in the underground infrastructure. For the inside, Piping that is typically seen within the city if the meters are inside, not outside. We do an inside gas inspection as well. We'll send out letters to try to coordinate to get into the basements. And for the gas meters itself, Every seven years, we have to change the gas meter. Part of that change, we also do the inspections in there, so if we haven't been able yet to get inside, we will do that inspection at that point. Additionally, anytime we're out excavating in the area,

The men and women of the crews in that general hole excavation are also taking scope of what they're connecting to, what the condition is of that pipe. and then they can put it in. We'll get into cast iron, plastic, coated steel and up from that end but they will take the integrity of the pipe and if we have to get into that replacement, that's where we get into the coordinate effort that both Jamie spoke and Norman as well as Eddie Hesford in terms of transportation, that scope is much larger. So it's kind of walking along that from the road to the service to inside the house to also the activity in the field.

So for Verizon, we handle it different ways. First of all, we have regular safety managers and work inspectors, and that is all they do. They are proactive as well as reactive as work comes into them. As far as our staff is concerned, whether we are doing installs or maintenance, the first requirement when we reach any of our facilities is we have to go through a safety check. So that is done with any kind of response that we have in addition to the regular work that our safety managers and work inspectors do on a daily basis. We also have a rotation that's handled by municipality that we hire a third party Vendor to do.

They'll go out and they'll inspect every, for example, every pole that's listed in a municipality. They will check it for safety, mark it whether it needs an upgrade. or Straight Out Needs a Change. They also check it for insect infestation. So we do that on a regular basis. The other thing is when we're going on a safety visit or being proactive on a maintenance check for our equipment, I do think it needs to be stated that, again, our facilities and equipment is not high voltage or a fire hazard. So it is a little different for us. but we handle things both on a proactive maintenance safety check routine and a reactive on a daily basis.

Thank you all. Thank you, Councillor. Flint.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the panel that's here and the important work you are doing. These are important issues and It's public safety and ensuring we provide the best services we can to residents. These are issues I've worked on outside of this job. I lived in Guantanamo for a year and I lived in A small country in the Middle East and extreme heat is something that we dealt with frequently. So just getting back to your comment about the extreme heat on the wires, is that what you mentioned, John?

Yes, so the there was a rubber covering on the wire as well for it was protection for work that was being done in the area so you know the wire was damaged so we couldn't tell for sure but it seemed That keeps the heat in and started melting the insulation on the wire.

Okay. So could that happen again in whether it's Charleston or another neighborhood this summer when it's likely to get very hot? Could that same situation take place again where that extreme heat could literally cause another major fire like that? I don't know.

I would say is Depends on the situation, depends on the configuration. If we are talking about high heat, we take all the precautions before the high heat. We have internal procedures that we manage and maintain in order to ensure that safety-related incidents don't happen. So the answer to that would be the likelihood, yes. How much? To be determined. Depends on the configuration.

Can you determine if the wires are damaged without looking at them? Do you have any way of looking at them through video? to do a thorough review of the wires where you know that something is damaged or could be damaged or could be burning off through any type of intelligence gathering.

So we have, again, I'm unfamiliar with the cycle of how frequently that happens. We do have infrared inspection of our equipment, whether that's overhead or underground, and that helps us determine whether the equipment is

Those are done yearly. The whole system is done yearly where they ride it out with the infrared camera and anything that comes in high, we get the report to make the repairs.

So if we're heading into a 90 degree day this summer, Are we on alert that this type of situation could happen anywhere in Boston? And that city departments are on alert as well, public works is on alert, transportation, emergency management. City Council, Mayor's Office. Everyone's on alert because the likelihood of this happening again is high.

So, I mean, we prepare for a heat wave the same way we would prepare for a winter event. Winter storm. Ready to respond at any time, whenever there's any kind of weather event.

Okay. For example, if there's a major heat event, it could be 100 degrees. I'm always concerned about the elderly if the air condition gets out, or little kids, infants. So if the power goes out, we're preparing for that. We know that there's going to be a 100 degree event. But are we also preparing that There's a likelihood, a potential likelihood, of a public safety issue relating to the wires.

I mean, I'm not sure you could rule anything out. I've been here for 20 years, and that was the first time I've ever seen that. Generally, there's a fuse, but there wasn't enough fault card to blow the fuse that day, and this is more an engineering end. But I would say that fuse would have blown and it wouldn't have happened, but because of a lack of fault current, it didn't.

Usually a high heat, if there isn't enough fault current, that would also open our downstream automatic device. which would have de-energized the area. We did not see that fault current in this event. Hence, the cause is, you know, anything we say might be speculation.

Okay. Maybe I'll ask Ellen a question. Ellen, I know you mentioned Massachusetts Emergency Management Association, MEMA, in your comments. What type of training do you have or as well as your colleagues, what type of training do you provide the City of Boston Emergency Management? Either training or partnership.

I don't think we've provided them any training per se because they would defer to us to handle our facilities. We are always available. I know myself, I have sent emails out with information. to the cities. I do handle all of Massachusetts. So they do know if there is an issue where they can get a hold of me. They know our Senior Managers that handle the Boston area both on install, maintenance, construction, And we also provide them with, if there is an issue, a critical response line that's manned 24 by 7 that is

solely just for emergency management, DPW, police, fire, anyone like that. It's not for the general public. But there are times that they would ask us questions about our facilities or how they're handled. More than always happy to meet with them and we do, but most of the time when it comes to handling our facilities or things like that, they would defer to us and prefer not to touch them.

Okay, Mr. Chair, can I make one final comment? Yes. Okay, and I'll try to be brief. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Maybe my recommendation is, and the people on this panel including me, including all of us here and city officials, I think it's important to provide some training as we go into the summer, we're in the winter and the spring, but provide some training to emergency management. I do think, in my opinion, that they were not fully engaged in what happened in Charlestown. I want them to be fully engaged. I want them to know exactly what they're doing, what their job responsibilities are, how they communicate with you. How they communicate with the mayor's office, how they communicate with the State Department of Public Utilities. I think it's important for this panel and city officials to meet formally and iron out a lot of issues that have been in my opinion fell through the cracks during this issue. Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Fitzgerald.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you all for coming down and being part of this panel today. You know, thinking about how I'm thinking about the residents that are here and that were affected by it and trying to put their mind at ease as well, both about the past and the future going forward. You said this type of incident, John, I think you heard you say First time in your 20 years working, so this is not an overly common occurrence, hopefully.

No, it's not, no.

Right, I mean, wires, we all see wires across all our districts all the time, wires down, but this sort of catching fire and exposing and lighting other cars on fire. So I will take the odds on that are at least good, but I want to know in protecting it going forward, because even once is too many, are there equipment updates or is there technology that we have that will Is better prepared for climate change in the future? Are there things coming down the pipeline where we are getting ready to adapt to severe heat with the equipment you all have? I know you probably, It's not just related to the high heat event, right?

Sure. Good amount of automation and innovation in the utility space where I can speak to a couple of the projects that are coming down the line for Eversource, particularly in Massachusetts and Eastern Mass. One of them is a DPU-mandated distribution management system, which is going to give us visibility all the way down to the low wires, which I mean by low wires is the lowest voltage. It will give us visibility into customers who are installing solar panels so we can have a full picture in our control room at Massachusetts Avenue, at our central location. So we are able to determine with eyes and ears being able to manage and maintain our system effectively. The second project that I want to refer to is our AMI, which is automated metering infrastructure. That in particular is going to help us identify proactively areas that might be overheated, overloaded before those actually happen.

And that's going to help us even be more proactive in order to address those issues before they become issues. So there's innovations that we can leverage in the future to anticipate, but as we mentioned, odds of this happening are not high.

Great. That is good to hear for the future, for the safety of all in the city. And the more technology, especially around the safety of delivering the utility work, is especially vital. Last question, so there's... Is there anything that is going to make electricity, and maybe Verizon can help with this, is there any way where, because I don't like overhead wires myself, right? I think they're a necessity at this point, but they're not aesthetically pleasing, and they do cause more probably problems than we would care for them to. Is there anything besides underground, knowing that the cost of underground would be almost too much at this point, less of a serious overall, Is there any sort of way to deliver things wirelessly? Or like without, I'm just trying to think of as we've done everything else, it's kind of a crazy question, I understand that.

But I'm just thinking of, What can we possibly even pivot or people thinking like that to deliver sort of services if it can be like, I don't know if you even can, right? But I'm just trying to think underground is not too much. Are those the only two means by which we can do it, underground or overhead?

It's an interesting question. It's something to ponder way down into future. At this point, the short answer to your question is it's either overhead or underground, physical. What you might be suggesting is if There's an option for customers to microgrid, which means a standalone island of their own with their own generation that still doesn't eliminate wires because somehow that electricity needs to get to the customer. We take safety. Seriously, it's paramount in our organization. For us, even if you think about wireless, even if you think about a microgrid, That fire hazard doesn't disappear just because you don't have an underground line or an overhead wire. Safety incidents happen everywhere. For that matter, if you are in a congested area with

All the other utilities in a small space, if the power goes out and there's something that is outside of any utilities control, it's going to take longer for that power to get back on than the overhead. So when we talk about reliability, and safety, there's different considerations to be had. But that's a great concept. I imagine in this current time frame, a microgrid may be an answer to that question.

No, I appreciate that. I just want to make sure we knew the parameters of which we're dealing with.

I think it's also important to put that, I mean, we have our wireless network. Clearly, I mean, over the past decade, I mean, we've invested $600 million alone in the city of Boston to bring in fiber that brought in our Fios. It also allows data transmission, cable television, 5G wireless, and other mobile services. So that is above ground, right? Having wireless does cut back a bit on the wired line. But again, that has to stay above ground. And the other thing about running wireless too is We do need our fiber for that. And we do need our, you know, our interoffice fiber. We also need our FiOS fiber.

But again, with that investment and the network that we have out there, and that's why it's so important for us to be able to It's an extent to stay above ground and bring that fiber with us and files with us is because what we're going to do with it is infinite at this point, right? We don't know. And what those ramifications are of If in the future of what we can do with it, again, possibly can, as my esteemed colleague said, have benefits too as far as power is concerned. But we do have that large investment in the city of fiber that also powers our wireless network.

Great. Thank you. And thank you for entertaining some of my out there, questions. Mr. Cal, I know my time is up. Mr. Cal, let's just say I hope that gas remains underground and we don't do overhead gas anytime soon.

That is part of my mission today, yes.

All right, so I think we've succeeded. So we walk away with one W today. and Mr. Fitzgerald, I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. All right. Thanks, guys.

I can't take the... Thank you, Councilor Fitzgerald. Okay. Carlos Zapata. Do you have follow-up questions? Yes.

I do. And this is specific for Eversource, but don't worry. I have some questions for National Grid just to talk about impacts on undergrounding and all of that. That's why you are here and various... Connections to Verizon as well. But for EverSource in particular, just thinking about, and maybe this could be for Verizon with fiber, but We talked about, okay, who makes the decision to put wires underground, so getting back to that point of this conversation, because that's something that is coming from the community, so I'm trying to get more educated on it. What goes into that decision? How do you decide what wires get put underground, where, for what reason? Can you just walk me through all of that internally and what you do with municipalities and the state to make that happen?

Our infrastructure, the way we engineer and design our distribution system, which is the lower voltage that we are referring to here, it's all based on reliability and resiliency. We see our equipment has good reliability as is the case in this area and good resiliency. We maintain and upgrade our system as we deem necessary as it's determined by engineering and our standards. If a town or city desires to underground their infrastructure, it is possible. And I'm going to speak on, please stop me if that's not correct. But if it is possible, we will. We can't underground. I do understand that the city or municipality or the town bears the cost. and as it was mentioned before- Wait, they do bear the cost?

The city bears the cost? Yes. Okay. But then we're talking about rate payers also bearing the cost, so now I'm confused.

The ratepayers would be the individual customers who would have to underground their service entering their home. So right now, the service is outside. They would have to... as my colleague in the previous panel mentioned that they would have to bury the underground service which means drilling in their basement and installing new metering in their homes.

Okay, so for American Legion Highway, for example, that was something that came from you all, so you all paid for that. I'm just- The American Legion Highway.

I'm not familiar with, I wasn't familiar with the project when- I'm not familiar with that project.

Okay, so when you underground wires, You all are what has been told to us by the previous panel. That's something that you all have paid for in the past and then ultimately the ratepayers at some point. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

That's a request that's coming to us from the municipality and the city, yes.

That's what. Okay. And what would lead you, I guess, to my original question, and you said it was based on resiliency. but what would lead you to, for you all to ultimately make that decision to underground wires in a particular area?

I believe our standards and designs thus far have us upgrading and maintaining the existing infrastructure as is. Historically, this city and the towns around this city have have been a mixture, but predominantly the city of Boston has been underground. So that's the main area we know that's what we call the network, which is usually the underground system. Outside of Boston, majority of our towns, our municipalities are overhead. Whether that's south or north, they are overhead. And our responsibility would be to maintain reliability, resiliency of that infrastructure, of the existing infrastructure.

Okay, and where would you say most of your service is underground right now in any particular neighborhood? City of Boston. Do you have specific neighborhoods?

Downtown.

Downtown. Downtown, okay. and there's a portion of Cambridge, which is also a legacy network, smaller compared to downtown, but there it is.

And what led to that happening downtown and in Cambridge? I know it was maybe before your time, but any historical context about why those wires are underground and not necessarily anywhere else in Boston? It's definitely historical context.

Yeah, that's a history lesson we have to dive a little deeper into. Yes. Not sure where that originated.

Can I make a formal request to the chair for that information? And that can be submitted through an information request to the committee.

In downtown and Cambridge are mostly businesses, correct? Where the overhead of residential may have something to do with that years ago. When the residential areas throughout Boston, Dorchester, West Roxbury, those are all majority overhead. Downtown Boston is more, you know, it was businesses and not so much residential. Different voltage. Different system entirely.

And it's similar to how New York City is modeled as well, where downtown New York, Manhattan, is underground, much larger compared to Boston, but modeled after the similar system. Much older, so we'll go back and look at the history on what the philosophy was at the time.

Yeah, I would love to learn more about this, obviously. Again, just trying to be responsive to the community's requests. And then National Grid, Joe. In this hypothetical world where this is actually happening, we want to understand from you what how that would affect your lines, I guess, coordinating in boundary areas with shared or adjacent equipment, how that would impact you, and I guess any joint inspections or shared protocols in place For cross territory poles or attachments that you deal with underground in partnership with these utility companies.

For this general area within the Charleston, within the section that you're speaking, pretty much every street has a gas main in it, six inch between plastic and coated steel. and you now looking at triples or even quads now running with gas services going in. I would imagine if I recall certain areas, the homes are close from that side. It's pretty much a low pressure area which means for us all the gas meters are in the basements from that side. So that gas service is usually probably gonna run on the side of the house going in. From a code perspective, that's just have to look at from a code perspective, Natural Gas and Electric in conjunction of where they go or where they're allowed to go will influence what is being done in that area.

If you're looking probably from an underground perspective within the street itself, You're now putting in conduits, and the newer model is, and they can answer better than me, but at least in my areas, you will have to run parallel empty. Conduits, in case there's an issue with Underground, you then have to ensure you have a Spear that you're running. Saying what I think with Allen, with Verizon, you have to run Spears as well when it's Underground. If you have water and sewer there as well, now you have that infrastructure underground that gets crowded. If you're running in this area and looked even put on the ground going in, what does that have to do with the gas service that's running to that house? Will we have to cut it off and remove it and move it to a different site or relocate it? And how do you look at that area?

I know from the Eversource side, it's probably with electricians. From us, depending on how far away we have to put a new gas service in conjunction with a meter is, They may need to call a plumber. They meet in household only because of the guidelines and codes within the plumbing aspect of it. We can touch some of the customer piping, not a lot, just by code from that end. So how do you map that through to the impact or conflict, how do you go about it? I know one of the speakers earlier raised something about water and soil, going to some of those areas, and the esteemed Mr. Hesford. It does get recorded, right? So I did call him a steam, Mr. Hesford, because he yells a lot at me.

he mentioned the word encroachment, cast iron, whereas what we have for City of Boston, a lot of it's in the city, cast iron, the old, Pipe Big, but there is an encroachment law out there that if it comes in conflict, we have to replace that pipe, even though it's good pipe. with Water and Soil, which is usually the one kind of pushing the rest of them. We have regular, probably biweekly, meetings with them in terms of their work and how to try to remove that conflict, or else how do we coordinate? If there's no way around it, we would have to replace that cast iron pipe on that side. So I know there's a mention on that, but in this area, there's probably a couple streets where we are looking at it. We're not near the water. Water's much deeper.

I believe it probably in the threshold it would be water, sewer water, probably underground electric, and then gas. So obviously there will be an impact to each and every individual service from that. I can't give you like quote be three weeks or however you're doing it, but it's that type of thing. And that connection would have to be at the main in the street. going through and depending on where we can put it. So there would definitely be a conflict on that.

Okay, this is fascinating. That's a good point just to add to My answer, if the city or the town desires to go underground, our recommendation would be to have either the spare conduits or Thank you. Thank you. Proactively think about those loads coming on those circuits when we if we were to go down this route and so we would design right size circuits at the time if we were to underground if there was a desire to do that.

Thank you. And I guess for Ellen too, I guess in a world in which we do, we want to underground the municipality that we're currently in is like, let's do it. We have how many Dollars and I was really trying to get a dollar amount from you all because they told me you got you all were here when they Gave their testimony asked utility companies. How much is this gonna cost? So I would love to get that number from anybody But Ellen I think for you, how does how do you? Coordinate with these utility folks. How would undergrounding impact you and your operations? And then how would you expect that it would impact your customers? If it does.

It would. Yeah, it's a very complex. Undergrounding is very complex so it would impact them. I can tell you for us, and just as Joe said there's there's all the there's a lot of meetings so there's meetings as you're going in through the design the you know um so and where we're going Verizon is usually always last, just like in the poll. But on undergrounding too, we tend to go last. where there are conflicts as Joe was saying and things like that, it will come down to when you're going through all these meetings and design changes, like where is there room for us? And that certainly when you're dealing with You know, a narrower palette.

So to work with the streets and the sidewalks, such as in Charlestown, that can be an issue. And a lot of times that we're told Okay, then you're going to go here. And it may change from the time we've designed and then as we start working. And that's why we do have regular meetings. With the utilities or you know any anyone else in the municipality too because they would have they have facilities that are overhead as well. that would need to be moved underground. So there's a stake for them there too and they would also need it in the ground path as well. So it can be very complex and tedious as you go along. So for a lot of that is like, where's there space for us then afterwards to go? And again, that could change.

I can tell you just as a very upfront cost that it is about just to place the conduit, just the conduit alone, is about $300 a linear foot. Now, that doesn't take in that after that, there's additional, because you have the permit costs. We may have to do additional, I'm sure we will have to do, there will need to be additional manholes to accommodate the new infrastructures in the streets. And that's an additional cost, the engineering costs. So when I say 300, that is for the conduit. There's additional costs that go after that. I'm sorry, I think you had another question in there?

That was it. I don't remember asking the other one, but I appreciate that. So you're saying $300 per conduit. I mean, do you have a ballpark of what it would cost you as a company? to do something like this just in maybe Charlestown. We can start there.

Well, for about 100 feet of just the conduit alone would cost between 300, 400K. But again, then you have to add in permits and things.

And that's just for 100 feet?

Yes, Councillor.

Okay, thank you. I'll switch to Eversource.

So for Eversource, it's hard to pinpoint a cost or give a range because a lot of it is very site-specific, what we're going to find in each area. We did have estimates from 2023 that gave a range of $2 million to $6 million per mile. That cost may have increased in these times of inflation. So it could be more than that.

Okay. And just say for like Barton Street. I don't know how long the feed is. How long is that?

Quarter, not even quarter.

Quarter mile. Yeah. So that's how much do you think?

I mean, it could be.

Yeah, the site-specific thing, because once you find out where the gas is, where the water is, where you're going to be digging, how the permits and everything else, it's tough to say.

And I would take that number. and inflated significantly because that's a 2023 number and the complexity of Charlestown which would be considered urban residential area, right? Residential areas are simpler. There's more space, ability to do the work. For us, it's also the limitations and ability to do the work, not just the work to do. That number would be significantly higher, even if we do the Bartlett Street. To be fair and equitable to the rest of the customers in Charlestown, I would consider both sides, where if you just Thank you. Thank you.

So there's good amount of consideration when we talk about really undergrounding and the design philosophies that would go in there.

And I know that Charlestown is one square mile, but I think the exact amount of mileage for the streets is an unknown number. and so forth. And then we went on BTD and just tried to figure out exactly if they have it. And even the Massachusetts Department of Transportation just to figure out what this ballpark number would be. and many more. and other factors related to that as well.

So the cost of equipment has definitely gone up, not just for underground but also overhead for us that we have noticed. We would need to install, as I mentioned, Conduit's big enough, not just for now, but also for future load increase. So we would be considering that, as well as Just the complexities of what space we have in that area to be able to do this undergrounding work, just to identify. And again, I think it's something that we could look at in Particularly for us Charlestown to come up with a number. Like I said, these are all estimates flying around right now Can we engage in that exercise?

And you also have to keep in mind, you'd have to change all the equipment, the automated switches that are in the overhead right now. which go for about $100,000. Now you'd have to change that out to an underground one. You'd have to put in another manhole just for that switch so we can isolate these things when anything occurs.

A fair point that John brings up is to maintain reliability that you have, which right now Charlestown has amazing reliability when it comes to power. Yes, we had this event, unfortunately. We would have to install equipment underground that are different than the same equipment would be different overhead. The other thing is all the transformers we have on the pole would also need to be in a manhole underground as well. So we would have to manage that. and the cost, the estimate that we might come up with, as you mentioned, we could go down this route to do that exercise, that wouldn't include the cost that the customer would incur to put that service underground.

Okay, and I'm just trying to- The other thing too to keep in mind is that Just the digging along and the excavating. Again, that's not in the costs that I had given you. That was literally just putting the conduit down. I mean there's also the excavation things like that you know we don't know the quality of the soil or what what you're going to run into again once you start digging you know you also have again on that police details like I said doesn't take as we've said doesn't take into account All the expenses that go with it that increase that cost.

Right. Right. And I'm just trying to understand the cost that is... I think how that's different you were saying municipalities would if they're the ones to come to you and ask for this that they would be the ones but literally digging into their homes and connecting their homes, that would be what they would be on the hook for, is what you're saying? Okay. And what is that average usually for a customer?

That I could not tell you.

And I think it would differ as well for the customer if they have an updated electrical system. Probably not as much, but as soon as they went into change, it probably would have to come up to code. So they may have to change. Some people still have the old. Fuses. I'm not sure they could make that change without having everything come up to code. So I think it would be much different. as well as where is their service going on their property, they would have to bring the conduit to the main road. So the more, as they were discussing, the further you are on your property, the more it's gonna cost with conduit.

Okay, very informative. I think the only other question I have is are there any upcoming projects that could incorporate underground utility relocation. We have Rutherford Ave coming up in Charlestown. I don't have an exact timeline on that, but anything that you would I believe our project engagement team is going to be meeting with Charlestown community tomorrow night to discuss upcoming projects. At the Charlestown Neighborhood Council? Yes. Okay. That's good news. I guess, sorry, last thing was Department of Public Utilities. So there was a lot of questions that were asked here that I think could have been

asked of them, is there anything that you want to, and you may or may not remember questions from Councilor Flynn or Fitzgerald or even Breadon, but anything that you just wanted to call out specifically about your relationship or working with DPU that you think would benefit this conversation or supplement anything that's been said thus far?

I think we have a regulatory affairs team that works closely with the DPU and they're in contact with them pretty regularly. I think that would be a great conversation to move forward with if you want to pursue this.

Joe or Alan?

Sure.

Similar to whatever Suhas mentioned, we also have a regulatory, because I'm sure any type of weather event, they have to be up. and updating them as well, so do us. In terms of any other emergencies from us, our dispatch has to notify DPU of anything from that 24-7, similar to Eversource there. Dispatch Centers 24-7. So as that comes in, that notification triggers from that end, and that sets certain things from that side. From a regulatory, you had mentioned training. We both are engaged with them. We do some training in the field as well with them. They are invited as Public officials, so there's certain things that they, you know, they can't have glass of water, right, for example, from that end.

but they are invited to certain things and kind of walk through and there is certain protocols, procedures that they look at to ensure and they can do inspections on us. From the training, we had one. We did one with the city, but they were not at that, but Norma was there. ISD, Fire, Water and Soil, from that end. Previous to that, we did a drill outside with them. So it's similar, you know, from this end, They're routinely involved with us and watching over and they mandated we have to report everything.

And for Verizon as a communications company, our dealings are predominantly with the DTC, the Department of Telecommunications and Cable, rather than the DPU.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you all so much for being here and answering our questions. I think this provides a good level set and table setting of what this will actually take. I would love to still understand the dollar amount really specifically from Eversource so if we can engage in that exercise and if I can make a formal request Chair, as well as the historical context as to why in downtown and what conditions I know that we did hear some testimony that is asking for action. Hearing is a step towards trying to understand how to move forward in an effective way where we have broad buy-in from all members of the community.

If there are going to be impacts to their quality of life, if there's going to be impacts to the way in which they wire their homes or There's going to be financial impacts. I think that's a conversation that we need to have collectively as a community and understand is this something that everybody is leaning into or what other questions or outstanding concerns do folks have. I'm very cognizant of that and I want to thank you all so much for being here. Thank you Ellen for coming in remotely and look forward to future conversations about this. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councillor. Thank you. Okay, I'm going to move over to closing remarks. So if any of you would like to give your closing statements.

I'll start. It's always a pleasure to see you being here from this thing, but as you noted and as Councilor Flynn mentioned and Councilor Fitzgerald in terms of our interaction, You know, Wood City residents. That's paramount right from us. And as Eversource mentioned, safety is always our top priority in whatever way we do, whatever we do out there, whether it's inspection, whether it's excavation from that end, trying to coordinate. and... Jamie and his staff along with Eddie from Transportation. When we go before them for a project, they are very focused on that. How do we coordinate? How do we limit the impact from that end? but still understanding the city is growing, the city's changing, the neighborhoods are changing, the energy needs are changing, and how do we adapt? How do we keep going forward?

So I think the dialogue is always one that is open. It has to continue from that end. So more than happy to ever answer any questions that you may have.

I just want to echo the importance of safety and how seriously every source takes that. This was an unfortunate event and we hope that it doesn't happen again. And we're looking forward to continuing this conversation and following up with those dollar amounts in the historical context. And thank you for letting us participate today.

Yeah, thank you for letting us be here. Good conversation.

No, of course. Thank you. Thank you all for the work you do as well. Thank you for being here and providing these answers to all the questions that we have and to Just for, I'm looking at Mike because I feel like I email you every week asking you about something for Eversource, so thank you for that as well. There's a lot of questions in my district as well, all the work being done by Eversource and National Grid, so I just appreciate the partnership to the community, public testimony. Thank you so much for... For all as well being here for the admin, thank you so much for your work as well. So with that, this hearing on docket number 1-447 is adjourned.