Malloy Demands Con-Ed Failure Probe from New York State

In a letter to the New York State Public Service Commission chairman, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy called for a “thorough investigation” into the Con Edison power outage in Mt. Vernon, NY, last month that caused severe delays for commuters on Metro-North’s New Haven Line.

Malloy wrote the letter to Audrey Zibelman, chairman of New York’s Public Service Commission, asking for the investigation.

“It is in the long-term interest of our region to have a safe and reliable New Haven Line,” Malloy wrote, according to a news release. “A thorough investigation of this incident is critical to identifying the underlying causes of the failures and in ultimately implementing actions to prevent such an incident from being repeated.”

The governor cited what he called a conservative estimate of the revenue loss during the shutdown, which lasted 16 days — $62 million. Earlier this month, he appealed to Con Edison to reimburse the state and MTA for costs incurred during the outage.

“The investigation should, at a minimum, determine the cause of the failure and identify all practices that need to be modified to prevent such a failure from recurring at this or other similar facilities on the New Haven Line,” Malloy wrote.  “It should determine the overall responsibilities for project management and project delivery that were in place for this substation project as well as recommendations for improving those practices.  It should also investigate the practices for restoring the failed feeder cable in terms of the resources and schedule for that process.

“Finally, it should evaluate Con Edison’s response to the incident in terms of its obligations to its customers.”

To read the full letter, click here.