Entergy's CEO says they're not quite gonna make their 2030 climate goals after all. Dangit. I know they were always taking that really seriously, too. They must feel awful about it. Or maybe they don't?
In a speech Wednesday to more than 300 energy professionals, policymakers and students at Tulane University’s Future of Energy Forum, Marsh said the huge new power plants, expected to cost more than $3 billion, will improve grid reliability for customers statewide at a cost of pushing back some of its carbon goals.
“It makes it harder to reach our goals in the near term, but I think it has the potential to make it easier in the long term,” said Marsh, who heads the only Fortune 500 company headquartered in New Orleans. “2030 is going to be tough, but I think we still have a good shot at 2050, because Meta can bring its $2 trillion company to bear on this problem and help us clean up.”
How? It doesn't matter. Magic, probably. Check back in 2050 to see how it went.
More than 18 months after Louisiana officials began wooing executives from Meta to the state, eventually helping land the Facebook parent company’s massive artificial intelligence data center near Monroe, Entergy Louisiana CEO Phillip May said he sees more economic development potential in the state than at any time in his 40-year career.
“We have the greatest economic pipeline since the post-World War II years,” May said in an interview Tuesday. “We have growth from the traditional petrochemical sector and also a new set of opportunities.”
Sounds amazing. I can't wait to live in the future.
Should probably remember that he said this, though. I have a feeling it might come up at some point.
Environmental groups and advocates for renewable energy have criticized the plan and questioned whether consumers will get hit with higher utility bills if Meta bails on the plant after 15 years. May said he isn’t worried that will happen, and argued that Meta investments in transmission infrastructure, resilience upgrades and the plants themselves represent a benefit to customers.
“Louisiana customers will continue to get low-cost power from the plants,” even if Meta were to pull out after 15 years, May said, adding that by then, much of the grid’s infrastructure will need upgrades and that “customers will be paying for that as they would.”
In middle Atlantic and Northern states where large data centers have been operating for years, residential customers have seen monthly utility bills go up by 20% to 30% in some cases. May said he believes that is unlikely to happen in Louisiana, where utilities are regulated.
“Those states are deregulated,” he said. “If you’re in a competitive market like that and prices are at an all-time high, it gets passed along to everyone.”
I think you can see the consequences of uncertainty come forward in the explosion in corporate stock buybacks; that’s a sign of retrenchment, where money that could be deployed or invested is instead pushed out to shareholders. No wonder markets are near all-time highs while ordinary workers feel miserable.
The only area where this investment retrenchment and uncertainty is not in evidence comes from the insane capital expenditures for AI computing power, which is propping up the economy almost by itself. That’s why municipal pushback to data centers will be one of the more fascinating developments of the next few years. And it’s why we should pay a lot of attention to whether AI is a viable business, whether its gains are accelerating or stagnating, and whether too much of this capacity deployment is on spec and fated to cause a crash. (AI is creating other economic problems, but we’ll touch on those later.)
Louisiana residents probably already know that their Public Service Commission is preparing to approve Entergy's plan to build three new gas fired power plants solely for the purpose of supplying Meta's massive new data center in Richland Parish. The plants won't benefit Louisiana ratepayers at all. But it will inevitably result in their paying higher rates.
Microsoft notes that you can combine its new AI function with other Excel functions, including IF, SWITCH, LAMBDA, or WRAPROWS. The company adds that information sent through Excel’s COPILOT function is “never” used for AI training, as “the input remains confidential and is used solely to generate your requested output.”
The COPILOT function comes with a couple of limitations, as it can’t access information outside your spreadsheet, and you can only use it to calculate 100 functions every 10 minutes. Microsoft also warns against using the AI function for numerical calculations or in “high-stakes scenarios” with legal, regulatory, and compliance implications, as COPILOT “can give incorrect responses.”
On Tuesday, Meta announced internally that it is splitting its A.I. division — which is known as Meta Superintelligence Labs — into four groups, two people with knowledge of the situation said. One group will focus on A.I. research; one on a potentially powerful A.I. called “superintelligence”; another on products; and one on infrastructure such as data centers and other A.I. hardware, they said.
The reorganization is likely to be the final one for some time, the people said. The moves are aimed at better organizing Meta so it can get to its goal of superintelligence and develop A.I. products more quickly to compete with others, the people said.
Some A.I. executives are expected to leave, the people said. Meta is also looking at downsizing the A.I. division overall — which could include eliminating roles or moving employees to other parts of the company — because it has grown to thousands of people in recent years, the people said. Discussions remain fluid and no final decisions have been made on the downsizing, they said.
The Public Service Commission on Wednesday removed commissioner Davante Lewis as its vice chairman after he called Gov. Jeff Landry an "a**hole" on social media.
On a 3-2 vote, the commission chose to replace Lewis with Commissioner Eric Skrmetta in that role on the board.
The vote followed public comment from a line of people arguing the move violated Lewis' right to free speech.
How thin is the Governor's skin? I mean asshole is not even that out of bounds. The WBRZ version of the story doesn't even censor it.
BATON ROUGE — The Public Service Commission voted to remove Davante Lewis as vice-chairman at a Wednesday morning meeting after Lewis called Gov. Jeff Landry an "asshole" on social media last week.
The commission voted 3-2 to remove Lewis and named commission member Eric Skrmetta vice-chair.
Of course there is also the possibility that this is about a little bit more than just hurt feelings. It might, for example, have more to do with protecting Entergy and Meta from public oversight than with people using rude words.
Two environmental and consumer protection groups are challenging Entergy's plan to power a massive AI data center for Meta, Facebook's parent company, in northeast Louisiana.
The Alliance for Affordable Energy and the Union of Concerned Scientists have filed a motion asking the state's utility regulators to deny Entergy's request to build three gas power plants at a cost of over $3 billion until it follows standard procedure. If the regulators side with the advocacy groups, Entergy would have to scrap the proposal in its current form and resubmit it after proving the gas plants are the best option available.
The regulator being appealed to here, of course, is the Public Service Commission. And the ousted co-chair seems to have a different approach to the issue than the person who will replace him... on behalf of the Governor's hurt feelings, of course.
PSC commissioner Davante Lewis said that it was too early to comment on the motion, but that the filing raises questions that the commission should look into.
"Having a review process is important to ensure we are building generation that is needed that is also the most cost-efficient," Lewis said.
Eric Skrmetta, another commissioner, similarly declined to comment on the motion specifically, but said that he believed the concerns over fast tracking the process or massive power needs to be unfounded.
With the ground floor of Cheramie’s house locked down as tight as
Alcatraz, Scrim made his way to the second story, where he found an open
window, gnawed through the screen, and recklessly launched himself into
space like Wile E. Coyote, plunging to the ground below.
I know it's passe to bemoan the death of the copy editor in professional news gathering organizations. But someone really should tell Doug that 1) You can't use an Alcatraz image in the same sentence as a Wile E. Coyote reference. Wile E. Coyote is not known for escaping from prison. Stick to one metaphor at a time. Also 2) Scrim is not Wile E. Coyote in this analogy anyway. He is the Road Runner. Individual attempts to apprehend him can only result in causing one to appear foolish.
Cheramie pleaded with the public to abandon any hope of catching the fleet dog and instead asked them to text her and her team immediately with the location of the Scrim sighting and the direction he is traveling (the number is 504-231-7865).
Cheramie is also quoted in that article issuing a corrective to the (hopefully toungue-in-cheek) popular sentiment that Scrim simply be allowed to roam free from now on. Even if he is having difficulty adjusting, it should be obvious that a comfortable home life is much safer and healthier than what he will find out on the streets. (The two bullets he took during his last adventure should be plenty enough evidence there.)
On the other hand, it's always possible we don't have all the information. To hear Entergy tell it, it is the stray animals themselves that pose the danger to everyone else.
NEW ORLEANS —
Thousands of Entergy customers in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish are without power. Entergy confirmed to WDSU that an animal caused an electrical short and damaged equipment. The utility did not say what type of animal caused the outage that's impacting more than 12,000 customers on the Westbank.
Now I'm not suggesting that Scrim swam all the way across the river and took out a piece of Entergy infrastructure on his own. That would be downright nutty. But consider that he wouldn't actually have to act on his own. Not entirely.
Consider that we may only be aware of a mere fraction of Scrim's capabilities. We already know he's an escape artist. What hasn't been discussed publicly is the possibility that, once free, he has quickly reestablished himself in the underground. He's got contacts in the squirrel, rat, possum, raccoon and crow communities with connections beyond that. He speaks all the languages, knows all the customs. He can hide and operate from anywhere.
Now that he's at large, his network has reactivated. And Entergy's could go down at any moment.
On the other hand, that's not too different from the every status quo anyway, is it?
Ha, see, you probably thought this was going to be about the Democratic national ticket. But, no, Wine Mom and Football Dad will have to wait. Even more normal things than that are happening in New Orleans.
The New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board issued a boil water advisory
for the city's entire east bank and Algiers Point Tuesday night after a
power outage at the Carrollton and Algiers water plants.
The
outages caused water pressure to drop across the city, prompting the
advisory "out of an abundance of caution," S&WB said. The cause of
the power outage is under investigation.
It's been a while since we've had a citywide boil advisory. I can't begin to guess why the Boil Order Decade came to a pause, but I would start with assuming they just stopped reporting the minor outages. When the pressure goes down everywhere at dinnertime, though, too many people notice. So they have to pretend to act.
The Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans (SWBNO), in consultation
with the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) has issued a precautionary
boil water advisory (BWA) for the East Bank of New Orleans and Algiers
Point. A map will be forthcoming.
Water pressures in thease areas
fell below 20 pounds per square inch (psi) due to power failure at the
Carrollton Water Treatment plant. The Algiers Water Treatment plant was
also briefly affected by this power outage. The cause of the power
failure is still being investigated. Water pressure to the New Orleans
Eastbank and Algiers Point have been restored, but a precautionary boil
water advisory is necessary until water samples can be collected and
tested.
How long was the power to the pumps out? In 2019, SWB installed two "water hammer" towers that are supposed to maintain pressure in the event of a power outage for up to 40 minutes. Entergy tells WWLTV that tonight's outage was a "brief power fluctuation." Is and event that can be described in those terms, more than the "hammers" can handle? If so, what good are they?
How is it that the "brief power fluctuation" affected both the East and West bank treatment plants? I didn't think they were connected. Also what is going on with Entergy in general? Anecdotally, we've been experiencing little brown outs around here just about every evening this summer. I haven't seen any explanation for this.
In fact, it seems like they aren't even trying to communicate anymore. Tonight, for example, when tasked with explaining the brief fluctuation that somehow overcame SWB's big expensive hazard mitigation system, they just went into their bag of standard excuses and pulled out...
BREAKING: A spokesperson with Entergy N.O. says a Mylar balloon is behind tonight's power outage that led to SWBNO losing power and the subsequent boil water advisory that is currently affecting almost all of the city. @WWLTV@CmGiarrusso
Balloon? On both sides of the river at once? That's enough to knock out the most critical public infrastructure in the city? Still? After so many rounds of this? No way that makes sense.
On the other hand, it's an extremely normal thing to hear from them.
Back in March of last year, we thought this NOLA.com "Talking Business" interview with Entergy New Orleans CEO Deanna Rodriguez would be worth bookmarking for a couple of reasons. For one thing, there's a part where she literally says it's nice that Austin (the city she arrived here from) is prioritizing crime, jobs, and infrastructure even though, "it is losing a lot of its soul." You know, the classic soul-for-material wealth exchange that always works out so well for everyone. Apparently, Rodriguez is excited to help get some of that alchemy working for us too!
One of the biggest ones is that overcommunicating is a double-edged sword. You need to communicate as often as you can. But I realized I was in a very different environment than I had been in Texas, where the relationship between the regulators and the utility is very different. There, the regulators do not tweet everything you say. Here, the City Council does. Everything we shared was being amplified by the politicians either in a good way or a bad way. I think we learned how to share more carefully. It was a good lesson. If we are going to communicate with customers, we need to partner with the media to make sure we get our message out as clearly as possible.
So her main takeaway from the Ida experience is that their PR machinery needs to be a bit slicker.
As for their actual infrastructure, I'm not sure fixing that has ever been a priority. Not when every disaster presents a new opportunity to slam ratepayers with new fees. That was the idea behind their proposal before city council this week. It is likely thanks only to the federal funds made available via the
infrastructure bill that councilmembers were able to resist giving them everything here.
The three projects approved Tuesday are funded in part by the federal government through the bipartisan infrastructure law.
The
company will replace 97 transmission towers from Slidell to Michoud
with stronger poles and pole tops, addressing a key weak point exposed
by Ida. The lines feed power to about 48,000 customers. The projects
will also upgrade distribution poles serving about 1,300 customers near
Chef Menteur Highway and add a 30 megawatt battery to provide backup to
its solar station in New Orleans East.
About half of the $106
million in costs will be funded by the feds, while ratepayers will see
bills rise by $1.50 a month by 2027 to pay for the rest. If the council
had approved Entergy's broader plan, customers would see their bills
increase to about $12 a month for the first phase.
Most of the time, though, Entergy loves it when their shit breaks. Stretching back to Katrina, each of these episodes has been an opening to slap on more fees. It's why your bill looks like this now.
Static monthly fees may or may not do much in the way of hardening the infrastructure. But they certainly provide a consistent and predictable monthly revenue stream on top of the standard utility rates. That's exactly the sort of thing the shareholders are looking for. Which is the primary motivator behind the creation of schemes like this.
The council also debated the impact of Operation Gridiron on
Entergy’s shareholders, arguing that the utility neglects necessary
maintenance in favor of replacing overall infrastructure.
“Operation Gridiron is really proposed to the public as this
altruistic endeavor, but that is not 100% true,” Councilmember JP
Morrell said. “Entergy will profit from infrastructure investment… And
you would admit that maintenance is not as profitable as replacement.”
“That’s fair,” said Courtney Nicholson, vice president of regulatory affairs at Entergy New Orleans.
In previous reporting, Verite News found that as bills have climbed,
so have payments to Entergy shareholders. As of November, the utility’s
parent company has paid out over $3 billion in shareholder dividends
since 2020.
Entergy is responding to the hazards brought on by climate change by taking steps to ensure that their profits and dividends stay strong. When you hear their execs talk about "resilience," this is what they mean.
Still, the fact that the public at large and elected city councilmembers can still see all of this for what it is probably just means Rodriguez hasn't made good on her resolution to be better at lying to them. It isn't for lack of trying.
In November 2023, the same month the organization was founded, Resilience New Orleans released a study
that said that all New Orleanians, including those experiencing social
vulnerabilities, stood to benefit from Entergy’s proposed resiliency
investments. DeMoss also wrote an op-ed in defense of Entergy’s plan for NOLA.com.
Other energy nonprofits in the city, like the Alliance for Affordable
Energy and the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, have
expressed skepticism of Entergy’s proposal, and representatives for the
organizations spoke up at the meeting in support of the Council’s
resolution. They also advocated for the Council to approve grid
resiliency efforts put forward by community members, not just the ones
proposed by Entergy.
Resilience New Orleans’ website
advertises that Entergy is a supporter of the nonprofit organization.
The company is thus far its only financial supporter, DeMoss told Verite
News.
When asked by Verite News about her nonprofit’s connection to Entergy, DeMoss replied: “I know it doesn’t look great.”
DeMoss said Entergy gave her organization $40,000 to pay for the
study, which was performed by Maryland-based firm Hedgerow Analysis.
Outside of that $40,000, DeMoss said that her non-profit has neither
received nor spent any other money.
This is basically just the "paid actors" bit all over again except in the form of a bogus non-profit. That they called it, "Resilience New Orleans" is almost too on-the-nose.
Anyway one more point of interest here is the paid actor in this case is Casey DeMoss. The article notes that previous to this gig, she served as director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy which is seen as a more legitimate advocate for ratepayers. That's something to watch. Lately it looks like jobs in the non-profit advocacy and political organizing sectors have been drying up everywhere. As that continues, and as corporations like Entergy seek to better hone their lobbying efforts, I don't expect DeMoss will be the last sellout we'll come across. All these comms and policy professionals are going to need resilience strategies of their own, after all.
Large fire visible in Algiers coming over the Woodland Bridge. Looks to be an Entergy Substation with nearly 10,000 people out of power. pic.twitter.com/p8oh3uYF2E
A spokesperson for Entergy New Orleans told WWL Louisiana, “This
morning, NOFD responded to a fire at an Entergy substation in Algiers.
This created an outage currently impacting approximately 9400 customers.
Entergy crews are working as quickly and safely as possible to restore
service.”
The cause is under investigation, according to Entergy and officials say no known environmental concerns at this time.
Upperdate: Ah yes, of course there is more
The outage has affected the Wastewater Treatment Plant and Sewer Pumping
Stations on the West Bank. According to the Sewerage and Water Board of
New Orleans, flow to the plant has stopped because the sewer pumping
stations are offline.
The S&WB claims the stations do not have backup power onsite working
to mobile generators and pumps to the stations. The S&WB is asking
West Bank customers to be mindful of their water and wastewater usage,
and to conserve as much as possible.
Advocates for utility customers say the number of households
vulnerable to losing electricity and water has grown in recent years as
heat waves, gas prices, hurricanes and rate hikes have made it harder
for New Orleans residents to keep up with their utility bills.
“Folks are absolutely struggling,” said Jesse George, policy director
at the Alliance for Affordable Energy. “We were getting calls on a
weekly basis from people struggling with outrageous bills.”
Andreanecia Morris, executive director of HousingNOLA, said that
energy bills have been a major part of the city’s housing affordability
crisis, and that high utility bills are starting to impact more people.
“I’m hearing from people who don’t normally struggle with their bills, which is never a good sign,” Morris said.
According to that article, during the summer there were something like 24,000 accounts considered "delinquent" by S&WB 1,100 of which were facing disconnection. Meanwhile, Entergy is a little more shifty with its numbers. But one out of five accounts behind on bills seems like a lot.
It is harder to pin down how many Entergy New Orleans customers are
vulnerable to shutoffs. Customers owe $6.2 million in electric bill debt
and $639,000 in gas bill debt, according to numbers the company
provided to the council in late August. But neither the council nor
Entergy provided any estimate on the number of customers in debt to the
company.
Entergy executives did tell the council in Dec. 2022 that 36,000
customers — roughly one in five New Orleans accounts — had entered
deferred payment plans to keep up with bills they couldn’t afford in
2022 alone.
At the same time as bills have reached historic highs, so have
dividend payments to Entergy shareholders. Entergy New Orleans’ parent
company, Entergy Corp., has paid out $3.2 billion in shareholder
dividends since 2020.
Burke and other advocates have long warned that the company has effectively shifted most of the risk of the business onto the shoulders of customers, who have to deal with erratic bills while shareholders enjoy steady, rising profits.
In any case, it's a lot of people who Entergy just figures it can ignore repeatedly.
The lights are back on at Saint John and the French Quarter restaurant is planning to reopen, marking a swift turnaround from just a day before.
Thursday afternoon chef/owner Eric Cook announced that Saint John was closed "indefinitely" amid a dispute over an Entergy bill for $40,000 that resulted in the restaurant's power being disconnected.
In a statement released Thursday,
and in a subsequent interview, Cook described the decision to close as a
culmination of frustrations with doing business in New Orleans, and the
Entergy billing dispute as the last straw.
However, Cook said Friday that after a morning meeting with
representatives from City Councilmember Helena Moreno's office, he heard
from Entergy that power to the restaurant at 1117 Decatur St. would be
restored while he and the utility work through the billing issue. Moreno
sits on the City Council's Utilities, Cable, Telecommunications and
Technology Committee, which oversees the council's responsibilities as
regulator of Entergy New Orleans.
And so there you have it. If you want to be heard fairly by Entergy, you should simply own your own restaurant and have enough reach to get enough people mad on the news. Why doesn't everybody do that?
Chef Eric Cook opened his French Quarter restaurant Saint John
two years ago with an aim to showcase traditional New Orleans cooking.
Today he announced he’s closed the restaurant “indefinitely” in
exasperation over the city’s leadership and its utility providers.
In a statement, Cook said Entergy New Orleans cut power to Saint
John, at 1117 Decatur St., over a bill for $40,000. Cook claims this
bill is for “a ghost meter that they cannot even determine its location
on the property.”
That's a shame. I do sort of expect maintaining a meter that tells you how many ghosts are in the restaurant would be kind of expensive. At the same time, though, I thought that's what the big Varg piece on the wall of the dining room was for.
This is a comprehensive study of Entergy rates going back 20 years by Verite's Michael Isaac Stein. If you've been thinking your bills are higher than they've ever been, then, yes, you are correct. In the last year, alone, the average annual bill in New Orleans is up by 60 percent. The article also points out the City Council is poised to approve an additional 20 percent hike for "resilience upgrades."
We've been on this horse for a while now. See here and here for some relatively recent posts about this. But, long story short, the main thrust of Entergy's "resilience" strategy is to shift the growing costs of climate change down to its captive ratepayers while investors and executives continue to reap extraordinary profits. You pay more for everything; that's the resilience strategy in a nutshell. The Verite article shares comments from several parties who also make this point well.
Some Entergy critics argue that there is also a broader and more
simple reason bills are rising so fast — Entergy is favoring its
shareholders over its customers.
“Entergy’s mission is to enrich shareholders, so it’s a contributing
factor for certain,” Harden said. “It’s about trapping New Orleans
residents to ensure we’re always paying high bills, a cycle of billing
we have no control over.”
At the same time as bills have reached historic highs, so have
dividend payments to Entergy shareholders. Entergy New Orleans’ parent
company, Entergy Corp., has paid out $3.2 billion in shareholder
dividends since 2020.
Burke and other advocates have long warned that the company has effectively shifted most of the risk of the business onto the shoulders of customers, who have to deal with erratic bills while shareholders enjoy steady, rising profits.
“Why should only residents be the ones who suffer as a result of
climate change and international markets?” Burke said. “Why should
people, especially in cities like New Orleans where a vast percentage of
our population is in poverty, be holding up these Fortune 500 companies
and their shareholders who are insulated from every risk at every turn?
I don’t think there’s any world in which that is just or equitable.”
Why should the poorest and least powerful shoulder the burdens of maintaining capital through a global disaster? The short answer is, because that's always been how it's done. Shifting the inevitable risks of climate change onto the most vulnerable is at the heart of US industrial policy now. You are the resilience plan. Your blood and your bones. It's not going to stop, either. Verite pulls a quote from Monique Harden for its headline that is apt enough here. There's simply "no end in sight" for the costs we're going to endure.
Entergy Corp. is selling its natural gas distribution business to
Baton Rouge-based Bernhard Capital Partners, part of a broader strategy
shift that if approved by regulators will mean a new gas provider for
tens of thousands of Louisiana homeowners.
Entergy officials announced the $484 million deal on Monday and said they hope to finalize the sale in mid-2025.
In an email to customers, Entergy executives said there would be no
immediate changes to gas service or bills for their roughly 200,000
customers in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
“We
will work with our customers, regulators and Bernhard Capital to ensure
a smooth transition and minimize any inconvenience,” read the message,
which was signed by Entergy Louisiana CEO Phillip May and Entergy New
Orleans CEO Deanna Rodriguez. They promised to provide additional
information “in the months ahead.”
Rodriguez said the company’s pitch to customers is that they will save money in the long run if the plan is approved. The company’s leaders have argued it will cost less over time if the company can avoid costly replacement projects after storms, and that customers may not have to spend money evacuating.
If approved, New Orleans customers would see higher bills. The utility has said bills would gradually rise from an additional 20 cents in surcharges per month in 2024 to $11.86 per month in 2028.
For this very simple investment in our company making its quarterly profit goal so it can spit out obscene dividends to shareholders, you get the peace of mind that you are doing a... good thing for... the future.. maybe.
Also resilience! Don't forget that we said resilience in this pitch. That always seems to work
This new S&WB substation has gone on quite a journey. First, Entergy was going to pay for it outright. We thought that sounded suspicious. And lo and behold, it was. After that fell through, the plan was to pay for it out of the city's American Rescue Plan allocation. But that also sounded suspicious to us because it was already clear the mayor wanted to spend that money on cops and discretionary nonsense. Those suspicions also turned out to be well founded and now here we are back where we always thought we would be.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell and the City Council
responded in unison last July when Assessor Errol Williams announced
that citywide property assessments had jumped by more than 20%.
They said City Hall would not “roll forward”
property tax rates under its control, meaning property owners would not
face additional liability for a little more than half of all citywide
millages.
But the Sewerage & Water Board’s executive
director, Ghassan Korban, has different ideas than his elected
overseers when it comes to the utility’s tax rates. At the board’s Sept.
20 meeting, he said that he will argue for a roll forward, as the
S&WB is in full tree-shaking mode to pay for a critical drainage power upgrade and a citywide meter replacement project.
Eventually the burden finds its way downstream to where the least important people are. And that's who has to bear it.
How does one even do Carnival on COVID? It's a citywide party people come to from all over town... all over the world, really. They all stand in the street talking, eating, drinking, sharing with friends, family and strangers. If you're doing it right, you will see every single person you know at least once by the end of the season. Carnival is a social binder. But you're supposed to be isolating; "socially distancing" as we say now. You can't really make plans to see anyone. You can't have anybody over. You should probably just stay home. Is Mardi Gras a marathon or a sprint? How can one do either if you can't even catch your breath?
But what if your quarantine quarters just happen to sit a block or so off of the parade route? Are you really going to just lay there all night when you can hear the drums outside? Wouldn't you be just a little bit tempted to bundle up, put on a mask, and oh so carefully creep up to St. Charles to take in a few moments from the other side of the street?
No, of course you should not do that. You should stay your sick ass in bed until you get better.
I did try and do that on Friday, though. Here's what it looked like.
Yeah okay so you really can't see that well from back there. At least not when the marching units are going by. The floats came out okay, though. Even the Oshun floats, although all I really saw of Oshun was the king and court stuff. After that I had to go back in and take a break.
So here's something about having COVID, you might not have heard. It really sucks. Even when the fever is gone, and even when your cough is mostly under control, the fatigue is still very freaking real. My only plan this evening was to walk a block and kind of stand around for a while. But I couldn't even do that without going back in to rest and get warm. Oh also it rained during Oshun (it always seems to rain on Oshun) and I wasn't going back out until that stopped.
By the time it stopped, Cleopatra was already rolling. Looked like they had some kind of gem theme going. This float was Diamonds.
And this one was Turquoise
Oh and Lapis Lazuli
By the way, I don't think I'd noticed before now how much nicer my float pictures come out when I take them from this distance. Maybe not great for detail, but there's a sense of scale and balance to them this way. And you can see the crowd well. Also I can still zoom in when I want and... oh my that doesn't look very safe!
Don't worry. Nobody fell off a float. Not on Friday night, anyway.
Entergy New Orleans blames a car striking a utility pole for the electricity failure during Friday night's Uptown Carnival parades.
Spokesperson Lee Sabatini said the car hit a pole on St. Charles Avenue at Terpsichore Street at
about 9 p.m., darkening the river side of St. Charles as far as Prtania
Street between Felicity Street and Andrew Higgins Boulevard. Almost
1,500 Entergy customers were powerless until 10 p.m.
Wait. Is that what actually what happened? Witnesses differ.
Bc there was no car that hit a pole. After that report, I walked Terpsichore over to Prytania and then back across St. Charles to Carondelet. Everything was business as usual. Asked people on both sides if they’d heard a car hit a pole & no one heard anything like that.
Ok, fine, then, people from the internet. Please tell us about whatever crazy conspiracy y'all are on about now before Elon shadowbans you or something. If it wasn't a car, then what?
Confetti cannon at erato appears to have hit a transformer. Saw it blow. We have no power now. Parade halted.
Knocking out the power by shooting confetti from a parade float sounds like something out of a 60s TV Batman episode. It's plausible, though. Jefferson Parish has already banned metal confetti specifically because of this problem having come up in the past. Still, Entergy is out here saying it was a car accident that nobody saw. Why would they make something like that up? I mean, sure, we know they're super defensive about the fragility of their infrastructure and all but they wouldn't just lie about it, right? I mean what if somebody had it on video?
What if there were more than one video, even? What would this story look like then?
A video shared with The Times-Picayune, by a person who asked to remain
anonymous, shows what presumably is a float-mounted confetti cannon
blasting toward utility lines on St. Charles Avenue during the Krewe of
Cleopatra parade. The blast results in sparks flying and darkness
descending on the area.
How much would that change Entergy's position on the matter?
Sabatini said a confetti cannon might have contributed to the power
outage, because confetti made of Mylar can act as a conductor on power
lines.
Oh okay the cannon "might have contributed." That's good. I might have contributed to paying my light bill this month. I'll have to check back on that too. I sure hope they don't cut me off in the meantime. (You know.. on purpose for once.) Maybe I should say something to my Congressman about this problem. You think I can get his attention? I mean I'm all the way in the back of the crowd and he's up there on that float.
Troy's a West Bank guy so it figures he'd show up in the Alla (Algiers, la) parade. I'm an Uptown guy and even though this West Bank parade comes through my neighborhood now, I barely had the energy to stay out and watch it. It looked like they were doing a festivals theme. But it was cold and I was already overspent. So I let the rest of it go and went back inside to collapse.
On Saturday, I was even more determined not to overdo it. I found an oak tree root I could sit down on, conserve energy, and people watch. I can't really drink. And it gets lonely when you can't go into the crowd or really even talk to anybody. But I like to take in the scene, and listen to the music, and watch some of my favorite totems roll down the street.
But first I had to watch this cop parade. Troy Carter was also in that.
So was Susan Hutson. At least her float was better than the one in Krewe du Vieux.
Oliver Thomas was there too. He was on the Army float. This made me think of Elvis Costello.
Also, in the cop parade, the cops.
Don't know how this affected their delicate deployment issues. Maybe this is why nobody could substantiate Entergy's "car accident" theory about the power outage. The cops who would have taken that report were getting ready to ride on the float? Sad, if true.
Anyway, I was low on energy again Saturday afternoon so I hung around just long enough to see the big catfish before I went back inside. Ordinarily I like to watch Pontchartrain and play the little fill-in-the-blank game with their float titles. I just couldn't do it this time.
Like I said earlier, though, I don't feel like I'm participating in the ritual unless I am able to bear witness to certain of the idols presented for admiration by the throng. The catfish is one. The Sparta helmet is another. So I had to go back out.
Sparta.. or.. The Spartan Society, now, I guess.. was, like Oshun doing a kind of global festivals theme.
But theirs was a little more esoteric. These floats depicted Carnival celebrations around the world and the music associated with them. So we got float titles like, "Maslenitsa - Hopak" and "Carnival-Danzon" or "Ostatki-Polonaise" Also if you are wondering what the big reflective jacket looking aura is in these photos, it is a ghost. When you have to step back from the crowd to photograph Mardi Gras floats, it turns out that you can see ghosts.
Anyway, shortly after this, I ghosted. It was too cold and starting to get wet and, um, I had COVID so.. time to go in and rest. Besides, it would be a while before Pygmalion showed up, anyway. Why was that?
After taking too wide of a turn at Jefferson Avenue and Magazine Street, the Pygmalion parade stopped for at least 30 minutes before resuming on Saturday night.
The krewe's seventh float, titled "Jester," hit a tree. The float then appeared to disconnect from its tractor trailer.
You could call the police but they all went by in a float earlier that afternoon. The trees must have known they had free rein too because it just kept happening.
On Sunday afternoon, a somewhat similar incident took place, when the 43rd float in the King Arthur parade plowed into what apparently was the same oak branch.
A NOLA.com editor riding in the parade
said the Big Bird head on the float hit the limb. She said a second
tractor driver arrived and tried to complete the turn, but hit the limb
again.
Noooo not Big Bird too!
How did this happen? Don't they inspect the routes anymore? Of course they do. I can vouch for this because I saw it with my own eyes too but many people reported observing crews on the street taking measurements. This guy from the city confirms that's, at least, what they were supposed to be doing.
A city spokesperson, John F. Lawson II, said via email Monday said that the route had been “previously inspected leading up to parade start dates” and that floats had routinely made the turn in the past.
Lawson said that after Pygmalion, members of the Department of Parks and Parkways' Forestry Division “confirmed that the branch was outside of the clearance zone.” The branch, Lawson said, “was roughly 10 feet from the curb, leaving approximately 18 feet of roadway for the turns to be made.”
Obviously everybody did their job. Only one explanation at this point. The tree did it on purpose. Time to face the consequences.
A twisting branch jutting from an age-old oak tree was rammed by two parade floats over the weekend, causing considerable damage to the floats — in one case, decapitating a large jester — and frustrating delays to the parades.
By Monday afternoon the fern-covered limb at Jefferson Avenue and Magazine Street had been cleanly removed by the city’s Parks and Parkways Department. The 25-foot-long, 9-inch-diameter branch was a safe distance from where floats were supposed to pass, according to City Hall, and shouldn’t have interfered with the turn in the first place.
Sorry, tree. But let this be a lesson.
And for me too. Let it be a lesson to not go to Mardi Gras if you are sick with COVID. I was so beat from just sitting outside for 45 minutes on Saturday that I couldn't make it out for Sunday at all. I'd better be over this by Thursday at the latest. Otherwise, we might have to take it out on that tree I was resting on.
Improperly calibrated monitoring equipment at Entergy’s Waterford 3 nuclear power plantcould have low-balled the public health threat of radioactive gases
released had there been an accident during three months in 2022,
according to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Entergy
officials notified NRC inspectors of the problem during an Oct. 23 to
Dec. 7 inspection of Waterford’s emergency preparedness programs.
Incorrect engineering conversion factors for measuring gases were loaded
into the radiological dose assessment modeling software of two “wide
range gas monitors” at the plant that are used in emergency responses,
according to a Jan. 12 NRC letter.
The letter — from Mary Muessle,
director of NRC’s division of radiological safety and security, to John
Ferrick, a vice president with Entergy Operations Inc. — said the
errors resulted in readings that were 30.5% lower than the actual
radiological conditions, which would have made public health and on-site
dose calculations inaccurate
The thingy that measures how hot the radioactive gasses *could have* been *if* any such gasses were to escape has since been fixed. One wonders if it had been turned down too far to overcompensate for this.
Waterford 3 was actually placed under increased oversight by the NRC
in September because of another incident involving improper calibration
of radiation monitors that could have triggered unnecessary evacuations.
It’s
unclear whether last year's inspection was added as a result of the
earlier problem, where NRC found radiation monitors at the plant were
being calibrated improperly between January 2011 and February 2022.
Anyway this is why I always say it's a good idea to get one of those hanging oven thermometers so you can watch whatever it is you are baking instead of just relying on what the display says. Who knows what's really going on in there.
I think I'm getting more superstitious in my old age. Or at least I'm making more of an effort to keep to the rituals. Or maybe I'm just set in my ways. What I'm saying is that, as the year goes along, I'm trying to make sure I do the things.
For example, we've been in the habit of seeing the skeletons sing at Ghost Manor every year. So it was time to do that again and there we were.
Halloween is first and foremost a children's holiday even if the grown ups don't always see it that way. It's about processing fear and even the idea of death by allowing it to stimulate our sense of wonder and imagination. Heck we might even call it a social #Resilience exercise.
The City Council is taking up Entergy New Orleans’ request to raise customer bills because of the $170 million in costs the utility racked up during Hurricane Ida.
Utility committee members voted Wednesday to consider the proposal, originally made in June, which along with another request to replenish a depleted storm reserve fund would raise bills by $4.40 per month for the average customer.
At-large Council member JP Morrell, the committee chair, said it was only the beginning of a process with a deadline of August 2023.
Entergy New Orleans customers seeking payment assistance may call (800)
368-3749 to sign up for a 4-month deferred payment plan. Customer
service agents are also available Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 7
p.m. to discuss additional payment assistance, including levelized
billing.
But then maybe you've seen this horror flick before and don't necessarily trust where this plot might take you. Maybe you'd like to try something different than just walking down that dark alley alone where the monster picks off victims one by one. Maybe there's more safety in numbers.
A debt strike works to get Entergy’s attention by hitting them where it hurts: their bottom line! By acting together and disrupting Entergy’s cash flow, they risk becoming less profitable. Entergy’s biggest fear is a cascading effect that could erase millions in profits from C-suite executives, hedge fund managers, and others that make a dollar off of our struggles to pay.
Entergy’s stocks are built off of our high bills and their continual disinvestment in our infrastructure. Without collective action, there are no collective gains. It’s time we stand up and fight back together with a debt strike.
Right now the goal is to get 10,000 people to pledge to participate before moving forward. Remember that's how many signatures the mayoral recall campaign claims to have now. (I seriously doubt they have even that many but they have enough that they feel like they can say that.) So it's not impossible to at least come close enough to that number to claim it.
In the meantime, we're just trying to ward off the evil spirits the old fashioned way. Ironically, a lot of the time, this is the only way you can light your home around here. No doubt they'll figure out a way to bill me for it.
In other news of the occult-adjacent, we caught the beginning of the Anne Rice memorial second line today in the Garden District.
Rice, the author of the 1976 blockbuster “Interview with the Vampire,” several sequels, and dozens of other novels, died in December at her home in Rancho Mirage, California, where she’d lived for the past few years. Her remains were subsequently flown back to New Orleans, her hometown, where she was buried with a private ceremony at Lake Lawn cemetery.
Leaders of the Vampire Lestat Fan Club, named for Rice’s iconic antihero, decided that the day before Halloween was the perfect time to mark her passing, New Orleans style. They conceived a traditional, group-participation, funeral parade that would begin at the Garden District Bookstore, where Rice once famously arrived for a book signing in a coffin.
Here they are turning on to Washington Avenue.
And that's pretty much what that looked like. The parade made a quick cycle to Rice's old house on First Street and then back again. All told we only missed the third quarter of the Saints game to see it.
We're finally doing something about the terrorists. On Wednesday, March 23rd, your New Orleans City Council will begin an inquiry into an ongoing insurrection that threatens the security of our civic life.
NEW ORLEANS - The City Council's Utility, Cable, Telecommunications, and Technology Committee will be meeting next week with Entergy New Orleans to discuss animal-related outages at Entergy substations. The meeting comes after several reported outages caused by animals last week, including one which resulted in outages for over 10,000 customers in the downtown, CBD, and Mid-City areas.
Councilmember Morrell released the following statement in regards to the meeting:
“Last week, over 10,000 New Orleans ratepayers lost power for hours because of a single bird, resulting in business closures. In light of the downtown outage and subsequent Lakeview power outages caused by a squirrel, I have requested for members of Entergy New Orleans to come before the Utility Committee to address the issue of animal-related system failures.
Incidents of power outages are unfortunately all too familiar to the residents of this city. These animal-related outages are not just mere inconveniences. They are hardships that grind our city to a halt.
When a bird topples key power sources for three years in a row, it’s time to take a deep dive into what is currently being done to prevent incidents like this, and which areas need improvement. If Entergy is going to request a rate increase, they should be able to explain how small animals repeatedly put thousands of customers in the dark.”
Reading that, one wonders if JP is really digging deep enough. It's true the creatures have waged a campaign of sabotage against our infrastructure. But their terror activities extend beyond the scope of just three annual bird attacks. Channel 6 put together a cheeky little graphic on the fly last week to try and get the point across.
Based off WDSU's records, there have been 5 incidents of animal-related power outages since 2013. There was also one non-animal related incident involving a balloon. Weather related outages are not included in this graphic. https://t.co/h2OObo3sJmpic.twitter.com/nizrMrFkRM
But that doesn't really capture the whole picture. We won't presume to provide a full catalog either. But just to give you an idea of what a few moments of casual googling and hazy memories will turn up, here are two outages allegedly caused by raccoons in 2008 and 2012. Here is the squirrel JP's memo refers to. Here is another squirrel in 2016. Here is one in Baton Rouge last year. The WDSU graphic references the famous cat
and the mylar balloons (2017, 2018, and 2021.)
Technically a balloon is not an animal but we cannot rule
out the possibility of them having been deployed through one or another creature's
deliberate intervention. One hangs around here long enough and one begins to get the impression that the animals might be up to something. The peacocks might vandalize your car. Feral hogs are undermining your levees. Alligators are up to all sorts of mischief in your streets, under your streets, in your dumpsters. This weekend, our most prominent animal insurrectionist celebrated his seventh birthday to considerable internet fanfare. Clearly his growing cult of personality is emboldening others in his movement.
With so much evidence of an organized animal uprising underway, you might think stewards of critical infrastructure like Entergy would invest more in countermeasures. But, as we've learned time and again, improved service is not the focus of Entergy's investment strategy. Profit hoarding is. And, as we've also learned time and again, that isn't a model conducive to producing reliable public service.
Entergy has aggressively resisted efforts by regulators, residents and advocates to improve its infrastructure. The company’s restoration of its equipment after major storms didn’t prioritize the grid modernization that industry experts say could limit the scope and duration of power outages. Instead of shifting toward renewable energy, Entergy doubled down on building plants that emit greenhouse gases — the same pollution that has made hurricanes more intense.
ENO is uniquely positioned among American utilities to protect its interests because of how it’s regulated. The subsidiary is one of only two investor-owned utilities overseen by a city council; utilities typically are regulated by a state-level commission. That setup has often left the New Orleans City Council without sufficient resources and expertise to effectively regulate the monopoly electric utility, according to interviews with some residents, council members and former city officials.
How frustrating is it for City Council to regulate this monopoly? Earlier this month, we learned that they can't even hire a consulting firm to help with their analysis. What's the matter? Don't these accountants want to work? There's real beans to be counted here!
The New Orleans City Council is planning to rebid a contract to
conduct a management audit of Entergy New Orleans, after its first
attempt received zero responses from interested firms. The management
audit was announced in September, in the wake of Hurricane Ida and the
weeks-long power outages it caused in New Orleans and throughout
Louisiana.
“To be candid we’re nowhere,” said Councilman and utility committee chair JP Morrel in an interview. “We got zero responses.”
The lack of responsive companies is not isolated to this one
contract. In recent months, the council has faced roadblocks finding
companies to fill several contracts vital to its role as regulator of
Entergy New Orleans.
Morrell called it “frustrating” and “jarring.”
These consulting contracts are typically the most lucrative the council can offer to anyone for anything. All last summer we kept hearing complaints from political and business elites that "free money from the government" was keeping too many people from going to work. But here we have the government with all this free money to give away to an auditing firm for, let's face it, not very much actual work, and there are no takers to be found.
The Lens asked JP Morrell why he thinks that is. He can't say what is keeping national firms out of the running but he does have an interesting theory about what crowds out local bidders.
He said Entergy’s outsized influence in the region’s economy may have also played a role. He was clear that he had no evidence of actual active “economic intimidation” from Entergy, but said that companies that stand to work with Entergy may see the council contracts as a liability.
“Someday you might want to do work with Entergy,” Morrell said. “There’s always going to be the idea both from law firms and accounting firms locally, that if you do work for the council on one of these pieces, you might conflict yourself out of any future work with Entergy.”
Someday you might want to do work with Entergy. It's true, the revolving door between local government and the utility giant has been in operation for as long as we can remember. Just a few examples would include the following:
Former Entergy CEO Charles Rice who resigned in 2018 following a series of scandalous events including the "paid actors" incident, a contentious rate case negotiation, and at least the appearance of insider trading activity. Rice has been in and out of local government, most notably as City Attorney and Chief Administrative Officer under Ray Nagin. Probably Rice's most famous exploit from that time was his purchase of the supposedly "bomb-proof" trash cans. In this story, we see Nagin trying to distance himself from the controversy.
In a recent interview, Nagin said he was never a fan of the squatty
cans, bought with a no-bid contract at the direction of former Chief
Administrative Officer Charles Rice. Rice left city government in 2005, a
few months before Hurricane Katrina.
"Those little munchkin trash cans? We got rid of those," Nagin said,
referring to the trash can deal as "a Charles Rice special."
The mayor's chief beef, apparently, was that the receptacles, known as "Jazzy Cans," were too small.
"I said to Charles, 'Where'd you find these trash cans?'¤" Nagin
recounted. "They're about this tall," he added, holding his hand at the
level of a table top. "I had to bend over to put stuff in ¤'em."
Told of the mayor's comments, Rice fired back.
"This was discussed with Ray Nagin one-on-one and in a staff meeting
in his office," said Rice, who is practicing law. "Ultimately, any
decision involving the city of New Orleans rests with the mayor. He
approved the purchase of the trash cans, and at the end of the day, Ray
Nagin makes the decision and bears the ultimate responsibility."
The trash cans were controversial when they were installed, though
the controversy had nothing to do with their size. The problem was that
the company that supplied them, Niche Marketing USA, acknowledged a
business relationship with Terrence Rice, Charles Rice's brother --
though the Rices have denied the link.
While Charles Rice is no longer the CEO at Entergy, he is still there in the legal department. His wife also works for Entergy as a systems analyst while maintaining a quasi public service role as chair of the public library board.
When Ken Polite left the US Attorney's office for Louisiana's Eastern District, he was briefly rumored to become a mayoral candidate. Instead he landed at Entergy. Here was his job description.
Entergy, based in New Orleans, confirmed the hire in a statement
Tuesday (April 18), adding Polite will serve as the company's chief
compliance officer overseeing legal and regulatory matters, including
its compliance with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rules. Polite,
41, joined the company Tuesday and will assume full leadership of the
department over the summer.
In the statement, Marcus Brown,
executive vice president and general counsel at Entergy Corp., praised
Polite's "superior legal acumen, experience leading people and his
personal commitment to local communities."
"He is well suited to
upholding and enhancing Entergy's high standards for ethical behavior
and our serious commitment to complying with laws and regulations -- and
doing what's right even when there's no rule to follow," Brown said.
Of course, Polite would also remain closely involved in government. In 2020 his firm was hired (secretly and outside of regular procurement procedures) by the city to perform one of the several simultaneous and conflicting investigations into causes of the Hard Rock Hotel collapse. Last year, President Biden appointed Polite to head the US Justice Department's Criminal Division where he will be in charge of investigating, among many other things, public corruption.
And then there are the firms the city council is (supposedly) attempting to replace through this bidding process. Here is a Lens feature from a couple years ago on the Dentons lawfirm and Legend Consulting Group. The story provides one of the best looks at the interlocking relationships between the City Council, the consulting firms, and Entergy itself. There's so much going on there, it wouldn't do the article justice to just quote a few paragraphs. But here are a few paragraphs.
It’s neither illegal nor uncommon in Louisiana for government contractors to make campaign contributions to the politicians that hire them. And prior to the April 2007 resolution, members of the utility committee received a steady stream of campaign contributions from utility advisors, adding up to tens of thousands of dollars. Even after 2007, several council members received campaign contributions from utility consultants.
Thomas’ campaign finance records from his time on the council show thousands of dollars in contributions from several utility advisers, dating from at least 2002 to early 2007. The Lens identified one small contribution of $250 to Head from Bruno and Tervalon — the utility committee’s accounting contractor — in 2015. We could not identify any such contributions to Midura, who said in 2007 that she did not accept campaign money from contractors involved in regulating Entergy, according to an article in The Times-Picayune.
Clint Vince’s law firm, Dentons, also gave $25,000 to the Louisiana Democratic Party’s political action committee between 2013 and 2018, according to state campaign finance records. State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, the chair of the Louisiana Democratic Party since 2012, was hired by Dentons in 2014.
“Dentons does not have a relationship with the Louisiana Democratic Party,” Peterson said in an email to The Lens. “Separate and apart from my role with Dentons, I serve as chair of the Louisiana Democratic Party.”
There also appears to be a longtime relationship between the utility consultants and the Black Organization for Leadership Development (BOLD), a local political organization based in Central City. That relationship can be traced back at least to 1987, when the council hired a firm run by Sidney Cates IV and then-Tax Assessor Kenneth Carter. Carter, a co-founder of BOLD and the father of Karen Carter Peterson, was a close friend of then-Councilman Jim Singleton, another BOLD co-founder.
Long story short, the very small circle of people in the New Orleans political elite class (and we are talking multiple generations of the same families) tend to ping pong in and out of government as they take lucrative jobs with the contractors those offices hire and the utilities and businesses they regulate. One more classic example of this occurred in January when we learned that Judge Regina
Bartholomew-Woods, who is married to Jimmie Woods, the owner of one of
the city's two major trash hauling contractors, was resigning her judgeship so she could take a position with, yep, Entergy.
All of which is to say, it's little wonder an unusually combative City Council can find any takers for these consulting contracts that may already be tacitly spoken for. And that's a shame because JP makes it sound like they are so very close to getting to the bottom of this animal conspiracy. But it's tough when you can't get anyone to take the case. Nobody wants to work in this town anymore, it seems. That is unless they're working for Entergy.
