A group of East Boston residents have asked the city for a non-binding referendum this fall calling on Eversource to move a substation proposed for East Eagle Street on Chelsea Creek someplace else, like Logan Airport. Read more.
WBUR reports on the battle between Eversource and East Boston residents.
Watertown News reports the Town Council is fed up with all those double poles - where a utility puts up a new pole then doesn't take down the old one next to it - and has told Eversource the company can forget about getting permits for any other work in town until it does something about them.
A Boston double pole that was finally taken down after several years.
Electric new design on Warrenton Street.
The Zoning Board of Appeal today approved Eversource's plans to replace a parking lot next to its Warrenton Street substation with two new transformers - with room for a third - but only after board Chairwoman Christine Araujo told the company it needs to do something about the sad state of its properties elsewhere in Boston, in particular in Roxbury and West Roxbury. Read more.
Dark Pru. Photo by Martin Lim.
Update: Lights started coming back on around 10:48 p.m.
Back Bay residents started reporting a power outage around 10:10 p.m., from Mass. Ave. all the way to Arlington Street, and down to Columbus Avenue in the South End. Traffic lights are out - and even the Citgo Sign fell dark. Read more.
Councilor Lydia Edwards and Eversource's Bob Clarke.
Nearly ten years after Eversource first proposed building a new power substation in East Boston, the city Conservation Commission could finally vote on whether to approve the project off Condor Street and next to Chelsea Creek. Read more.
State Rep. Liz Miranda reports some 2,000 Eversource customers have no power along Dudley Street toward Orchard Park. Eversource's outage map shows outages all around Nubian Square.
Mayor Walsh announced today that Boston has won state approval for its Community Choice Electricity program, under which the city will pay for electricity from renewable-power and lower-carbon generators for re-sale to city residents and businesses, helping curb the city's overall carbon emissions and possibly save consumers some money. Read more.
The pole and the car. Photo by BFD.
The Boston Fire Department reports that shortly after 6:30 p.m., a utility pole at Gerard and Kemble streets could stand gravity no longer and cracked, the high-voltage transformer at the top plunging to the ground, turning a nearby car and a street-sign pole into electrical conduits and disgorging its insulating mineral oil all over the place.
Eversource and a company that specializes in hazardous-waste cleanups were called in.
Well, we might see power outages tomorrow, but for some reason, National Grid decided to e-mail its Boston gas customers and tell them to call National Grid should their power go out, which would be a waste of everybody's time, since National Grid doesn't provide electricity in Boston and it's Eversource you want to contact should your power go out.
The utility reports:
Scammers are calling customers to say they need to pay $400 to have a new meter installed in order to avoid having their power shut off. This is NOT us. If you ever question a phone call or encounter, call us at 877-659-6326 (West MA) or 800-592-2000 (East MA)
Eversource estimates restoration time of 12:30 for the roughly 630 businesses and homes without power in the Forest Hills/Bourneside area, who lost their lights around 10:40 a.m.
Eversource reports nearly 3,000 Boston customers have lost power, clustered along Brighton and Commonwealth avenues, outbound from Packards Corner.
An Ipswich man is suing six companies, including the locally well known Direct Energy, for what he says has been an unceasing flood of phone calls asking him to switch his energy provider. Read more.
A concerned citizen files a 311 report about the situation on Aldworth Street in Jamaica Plain: Read more.
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