Springfield Lodges Complaints with Board of Public Utilities over JCP&L

Springfield officials have brought their complaints about Jersey Power & Light to the state’s Board of Public Utilities.

In a strongly-worded letter to the governing board, Township Administrator Anthony Cancro outlines longstanding and recent problems with the power company, upbraiding the company for its unreliability, poor maintenance and lack of communication. Cancro said that during the storm, communication was handled incredibly poorly, noting that several key JCP&L contacts were on vacation. Cancro concludes by requesting that the BPU investigate JCP&L and make the company invest in improvements to its service.

Cancro notes that during Hurricane Irene, large swaths of Springfield spent days without power and that JCP&L adopted a “lackadaisical” approach to communicating with the township. However, he stresses that the issues are longstanding.

“I intended to write this letter to you before hurricane Irene’s significant disruption and loss of power to the residents of Springfield, but the lack of preparedness, responsiveness and follow-up to our repeated calls to JCPL during the storm has pushed us over the brink with their lackadaisical approach to electric power production,” Cancro wrote.

Power in Springfield has been problematic for years, Cancro said.  Inconsistent pattern of outages have frustrated residents, not just because of lack of power but because the patterns define comprehension, with single houses or sides of streets losing power while their neighbors homes are fine. Cancro notes that storms often knock power out in Springfield, but that nearby towns services by PSE&G do not have the same problems.

To illustrate JCP&L’s unresponsiveness, Cancro recounts how residents of Lyons street had consistent problems with their power until township officials brought the matter to the BPU. Until the power authority was notified, Cancro said, the utility company was slow to respond to residents’ concerns. 

Turning to the hurricane, Cancro said that in the four days where homes throughout Springfield were without power, residents could not get through to JCP&L. Cancro contacted the power company on behalf of residents and found that his contact was on vacation. After a day, the contact’s replacement also went on vacation, and Cancro said he was directed to the company’s call center, which did not respond to the township’s inquiries. The township needed assistance urgently to help a quadripeligic resident needing electricity for medicine. Nonetheless, JCP&L failed to respond, Cancro said.

“To sum it up, their response to the hurricane was dismal,” Cancro said.

The letter closes by asking that BPU take a series of actions. In addition to holding a public hearing concerning JCP&L’s lack of responsiveness during the hurricane, Cancro asks that BPU investigate JCP&L infrastructure investments and require the power company to invest in capital improvement funds and a natural disaster call center.