Joint Climate Change and Sustainability Committee and Public Works, Sanitation and Environment Committee.

Without consolidated billing, the way the program works is that they get a credit on the monthly bill and then separately pay the subscription fee. While the net would be a positive amount to the subscribers, they would incur additional costs in terms of time and money, both of which are in short supply to them with dual billing. Having two bills instead of one for electricity is a major constraint. First, this would be confusing and inconvenient. Dual billing adds a burden for the very folks targeted for this plan. In particular, for those who do not have a bank account, this means they would have to pay for two money orders instead of one every month. Their payments would go to two different places, likely also on different days. Many low and middle income folks are either wage earners who cannot afford to miss work, they're working multiple jobs, they're taking care of children or others at home, and they do not have reliable methods of transportation. Also with dual billing, one or both of these bills are likely to be missed. Therefore, the lack of consolidated billing at the rollout of this program could prevent a main target audience from being able, willing, and able to participate. So consolidated billing is essential to the success of this program. Thank you, Debra. Daniel Weil, followed by Mary Ellen Burns. Sorry, I couldn't hear my name over the applause after the last one. Good morning, Council. My name is Daniel Weil. I'm a software developer. It sounds like I've been doing software development longer than Community Solar has been in the works. And I'm here today to talk to you about the technical feasibility of consolidated billing and am in support of it. The idea that it would take eight more months to implement consolidated billing I think is absurd and could be done in probably a weekend, if not a month. Probably by the time that the Community Solar project is ready to be up and running by Together New Orleans. Their software developers already have a mechanism by which they can take data from a spreadsheet and put it and apply it within their systems. They have access to Anthropic Clawed AI accounts, another product that I use daily and has tremendously improved everybody I know's productivity. So I see no reason why, based on that, they couldn't achieve this with significant speed and pace definitely before the end of the year. Thank you. Thank you, Daniel. Mary Ellen Burns, followed by Harold John. Good morning. I can hardly add any further important argument to what you've already heard so far. So in honor of our 250th anniversary, I would like to quote Ben Franklin, who said, You may delay, but time will not, and lost time is never found. These delays, starting nearly a full year ago, if allowed to continue, will cause the Sisters Community Solar project to flounder financially and will represent another example of how the resilient citizens of New Orleans, especially our low and middle income sisters and brothers, continue to suffer economic hardship at the hands of our government. Time lost and never found, indeed. We recognize these delays for the lame, the dog ate my homework, childish excuse that they are, and we respectfully request our elected officials and Entergy New Orleans to come together like adults and provide consolidated billing for the Sisters Community Solar project in a timely manner. Thank you. Thank you, Mary Ellen. Harold John, followed by Barrington Gidney. Good morning, members of the council. My name is Harold John. I'm here on behalf of Together New Orleans, and I come here asking and looking for a win. The good people of this city and community are losing every day. We lost Calais. We lost the clerk of court seat that was lawfully elected. We lost judgeships that were lawfully elected. We lost revenue with Folgers because they didn't end a round on us. We lost good city workers who had to be furloughed. We have a chance to give the residents of this city a win. I'm asking that you, I'm asking that the good citizens of this city not only want a win, not only need a win, but they deserve a win. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Harold. Barrington, followed by Calvin Lawrence. Good morning. My name is Barrington Gidney. I'm one of the pastors of Lubber Ground Community Church in District A, and also a resident of District A, and a part of Together New Orleans. It's interesting. I was reading on Entergy's website about their community aspect, and how they say they take care of the community, not because it's a good thing, but because it's the right thing to do. It's been the right thing to do consolidated building for over eight years. It's been the right thing in 2024, when they said they were going to propose and have it done by a certain time. It was the right thing last year, and it's the right thing right now to have consolidated building implemented here for New Orleans residents. Not eight months from now, but we can do it right now. Continue to push a delay is causing a financial burden on your residents, on the people that elected you to take care of them. We can no longer have a delay. As a hospice chaplain, I go to families' houses all the time, and I see people who are struggling financially to take care of their own mothers, or brothers, or children who are on hospice because they don't have the financial means to take care of all the different things that are coming on to them. We can relieve that burden by making sure this consolidated building happens now so our residents don't have to continue to have to fight to live. I'm here to ask our elected officials to listen to your residents, to take care of them, and to make sure there's no more delays, but to make sure the right thing is done right now by having consolidated building implemented as soon as possible. Thank you. Thank you, Barrington. Calvin Lawrence, followed by John Christopher Brown. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the Council. My name is Calvin Lawrence.

I reside at 6054 Madrid, Colton, New Orleans, Louisiana, a long-time resident. I'm here again speaking on behalf of this. I know y'all are going to do the right thing, man. I looked in the newspaper today and see what the Supreme Court ruled firing those people, man. We don't have that type of society here in the city of New Orleans, man. The people elected y'all, and y'all do y'all job right. To delay this stuff, if they have a good reason to delay it, they didn't bring it forward, man. And it don't make no sense for a stall tactic to do that, to hurt people, to end up prolonging the job, to cost the job more money. There are people that's out there working, counting on this. And then look in the future for people counting on more jobs to produce with this, man. So I just, I know y'all are going to do the right thing, as y'all always do, and just want to thank y'all for y'all time again. Thank you. Thank you, Calvin. John Christopher Brown, followed by Becky Merriweather. Good morning. I'm John Christopher Brown. I'm a homeowner at 2227 Pine Street in New Orleans. Currently, the community solar would not help me financially. But it's essential for us, for our city, and for our society, for this program to succeed for three reasons. Number one, community solar adds greater resilience into the electrical system. Number two, it helps low-income people pay their electric bills and live a decent life. And number three, it helps to combat climate change, which is a crucial problem facing society today, in spite of the people who pretend that it doesn't exist. Science is real, whether you believe it or not. So the council has previously issued a requirement that a consolidated building should be implemented. Entergy has passed that deadline. Now they claim, oh, it's technically so difficult, it's impossible to implement in a timely manner. But I don't believe it, and I feel that our elected representatives, who we voted for and support, should support us and hold energy to the original agreement, make them implement consolidated building, which is technically not that difficult. They are lying through their teeth when they claim it's impossible to do in a timely manner. Thank you, John. Thank you, John. Becky Merriweather, followed by Reverend Jeff Conner. Good morning. Council members, you guys have been trying to do the right thing on this for a long time, but Entergy has had a strategy. strategy to undermine every direction you have given them. The key to getting this done is proper regulation, which is your job. You all are required to regulate in the interests of the ratepayers. There is nothing in further delay that is in the interest of ratepayers. In fact, there's nothing in this delay that is in the interest of the people, the citizens of New Orleans who elected each one of you to your jobs. So I'm here today to ask you to stand up to the bullying, to the threats, to the blackmail. Stand up for the people. Sisters Community Solar has invested millions of dollars in this city. The project is underway. We're bringing renewable clean energy to this city, generated right here so it can't be blown down in a storm that takes down those towers. We need you to make sure this comes online in a way that survives and incentivizes other community solar programs. They, Entergy, asked for it, you told them to have this done by July of last year. A month before, they asked for an eight-month delay. Sound familiar? It's time to do it right now. It will cost not $730 million. That's just in excess penalties and interest. It'll cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And they are trying to kill the baby. Thank you, Becky. Reverend Jeff Conner, followed by Wendy Beck. I'm Reverend Jeff Conner. I'm a retired United Methodist clergy, a volunteer at St. Mark's, and with TNO. Entergy New Orleans has stalled several times when they have been told by this council, who regulates them on a number of occasions, to create a consolidated billing mechanism to make it easy for customers to pay their bill and know what discount they have received from solar power each month. Entergy wants you, the city council, to let them stall again in order to thwart the city council's decision in favor of community solar by interminable delays. We at TNO say no. It is time to make this a viable, easy to understand, and easy to participate in program. The longer the stalling goes on, benefactors are denied badly needed lower bills, the cost to the Sisters of the Holy Family project goes up significantly without consolidated billing and with the more delays. We urge you to stop tolerating Energy's delays and instruct them on behalf of the ratepayers, the people of this city, and your constituents. Stop the endless delays and get this done now. Do the right thing. Thank you. Thank you, Reverend. Wendy Beck, followed by Osa Adun. Good morning, council members. My name is Wendy Beck. I'm a project researcher with the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice. We are also part of the Energy Future New Orleans Coalition, and Dr. Wright already submitted her comments on this, and we support strongly the consolidated billing for community solar program. To make community solar truly accessible to low-income households and renters, consolidated billing is critical. Reasons behind adopting community solar are grounded in forward-looking, fiscally smart, and resilient thinking and planning. It is a strategy for diversifying our energy portfolio past fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Solar farms are the most affordable generation facilities that we can build, and it is clean energy that doesn't exasperate our already dangerous position we are here. Adopting consolidated billing streamlines paperwork. It eases adoption across all sectors of ratepayers. Deep South Center for Environmental Justice strongly supports the adoption of consolidated billing as part of the community solar program.

From hearing this morning's comments, we would also encourage a speedy adoption of it before December of this year, please. Thank you, Wendy. Jose? Jose Adun, Apple Street. Council, I just implore you, in the midst of momentous global shifts, 100-degree weather in Europe, and undeniable climate change, that you remember and pay attention to how you are remembered in the future. It's undeniable that renewables are quickly outpacing fossil fuels as a sustainable energy source. They're proving to be more cost-effective than fossil fuels globally. That's really all I have to say. I just implore you to pay attention to how you are remembered and your legacy. Please represent the people of New Orleans justly. Thank you. Thank you, Jose. Are there any comments from the dais? Yeah, I wanted to ask Entergy a couple of questions. I don't know if they need to come down or if they just want to stand up there. Entergy? All right. Thank you. When were you guys first ordered by the Council to put forward an implementation plan for consolidated billing? Good morning, Council Member. My name is Keith Wood. I'm the Director of Resource Planning with Energy New Orleans. The Council issued a resolution in the summer of 2024 directing us to file some sort of a proposal for consolidated billing. Our role in this program is to administer the Council's program, and at that time there were no rules that the Council had adopted laying out the way that consolidated billing was supposed to work. And so in the absence of rules, we could not put together any sort of a proposal for how we would actually implement it or how it would work going forward. So since the summer of 2024, there have been many, many rounds of comments back and forth, and we have asked the Council to promulgate rules which we would be able to react to and develop a program around. And so yesterday, the rules that are attached to this resolution were issued. So we're obviously going to be reviewing those in detail to understand what's in there and what we're going to need to do to implement the program as quickly as we can in good faith. So the main holdup in the delay was because there weren't required rules that were promulgated since 24? That's correct. Back in this phase of the rulemaking started four years ago with a request from Madison Energy to asking for a number of things. Among them was adoption of consolidated billing. The rules as they existed up until today have contemplated dual billing, and that was what we were prepared to be able to implement as far back as 2024. So four years ago, when Madison asked for the rules to be changed, that began a rulemaking process which we've been participating in with all of the interveners. As of the summer of 2024, there were no rules that adopted any sort of guidelines or requirements for consolidated billing. And so that's where we've been for the last two years. Now there are going to be rules adopted today, and we can move forward with that. So for the last two years, has Energy done really anything, any work, any cost estimates for consolidated billing? Yes. So we filed a letter in 2025, early 2025, I believe, which provided an estimate for consolidated billing cost based on our understanding of how net crediting consolidated billing might work based on comments that have been filed and our understanding of what other jurisdictions were doing. We provided pro forma red line rules with that filing, some of which it seems have been adopted into the rules that are going to be adopted today, other provisions of which seem to have been changed. But yes, we have been working on the consolidated billing issue. We have been engaged fully in the rulemaking since then, and we have been working continuously with developers regarding the projects that they have applied to build, including the Sisters of the Holy Family and other projects that are not yet in the queue. There's an application queue with, I believe, it's 15 projects in it. There's only one project today in the construction queue. That's the one at the Sisters of the Holy Family site for five megawatts. And so as we go forward, those projects will need to make the decision whether they're going to move forward or not and move into the construction queue. Okay. And now you say you need eight months to implement the consolidated billing. Is that accurate? Well, what we said in the file... Well, you said eight to 14, I believe. I believe we did because this is a program... We've not implemented any sort of program like this in the past. None of the other energy operating companies has implemented something like this either. And so in the absence of rules, which we had no rules, and so we put forward pro forma rules and I believe that we said in our filing that we would, assuming that the rules that were finally adopted conform to what we had put forward and what we were assuming for purposes of developing that cost estimate, we would be able to do this in eight months or so. We said if the rules that were finally adopted varied that, we would have to review them. We might need longer, 12 to 14 months is what I think we said in that filing. Okay. And I know you're on the regulatory side, but do you have any idea of what's going to have to go into it to drive it to eight months? Like why would it take so long? Well, the first step is for us to unpack everything. It's in the rules that are being finally adopted today because there's a lot of detail there and so, but certainly there's going to need to be IT coding work to our billing systems. There's going to need to be back office processes to make sure that we can get the right credits calculated and rendered on customers' bills and issue the payments to the subscriber organizations in accordance with the rate schedule that has been approved by the council.

There's going to need to be any number of other internal groups and perhaps external groups that we have to try to interface with to understand it. So, we're going to work in good faith and we have a requirement within, I believe, 60 days to file an implementation plan and so we're going to, we'll file our plan in 60 days after the adoption of the resolution with our implementation plan and we will do all that we can to make sure that we can implement this accurately and make sure that we do what we need to do. The last thing I would say is, you know, I know Intergy New Orleans and Intergy Louisiana are separate entities, but it seems like when there's a major thing going on related to infrastructure, Intergy can turn things around and move at lightning speed. And then when there are things like this that involves the community, it's a much slower process. So, that's a concern of mine. I'm getting a little frustrated and, you know, I look forward to working with you guys and hopefully we can get this done before the deadline. But thank you for coming down and answering my questions. Thank you. Anybody else? I have one more public comment and then I have some final comments. Jesse George? Council Member, there's also one online comment. Okay, and then one online comment. Good morning, Council. Jesse George on behalf of the Alliance for Affordable Energy. Just want to say we thank the Council for moving forward with consolidated billing. This is something that we have been strong proponents of. We also support Together New Orleans' call to accelerate the pace of implementation as quickly as possible. Where we would differ is we would not support the use of AI in that acceleration and implementation. We're here trying to create a more stable grid and create energy savings for this city and the use of AI is directly contradictory to that goal. Also, one thing I haven't heard addressed this morning, and I haven't had a chance to review the resolution that's being voted on because it wasn't posted online and it wasn't available on the table here, but one thing that hasn't been addressed in discussion this morning is cost controls for this implementation. We want to see it implemented as quickly as possible, but we don't want to see it used as an excuse for Entergy to go hog wild and raise rates on ratepayers. I'd like to know if there are cost controls within this resolution. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jesse. Monica? Hi there. I'm Monica Gerhart. I'm Executive Director of Gulf States Renewable Energy Industries Association, and I apologize that I'm coming in late and so I don't want to be redundant with what other speakers have shared. I would just say in terms of GESREA, Gulf States Renewable Energy Industries Association, is a trade association of companies in all parts of the supply chain that are working hard to implement these solutions. And I would say that, you know, obviously dockets take a long time, but the significant and repetitive delays in implementation and things like consolidated billing, which we know is good for ratepayers to receive a single bill, that the challenges that that creates, as I'm sure you've heard on the financial side, is folks have had to invest, reinvest, refinance. It creates, in terms of a market signal in the ways in which New Orleans is trying to, I hope, issue a market signal to participants, it makes it very, very, very challenging. And there are changes that would have been unforeseen, right? Like changes at the federal level that impacted the tax credits, but have had real, real impacts on the ways in which these projects are able to move forward. And so I think that it's really up to us to move very quickly, move in a way that is most beneficial to ratepayers, and help get some of these electrons to grid in a way that can really save households money. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Pierce, can you read the online comment, please? Sure. The online comment is from Beverly Wright, representing the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice. She says, dear council members, my name is Dr. Beverly Wright, founder and executive director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice. For nearly 35 years, DSCEJ has worked alongside communities across New Orleans, Louisiana, and the Gulf South that have faced disproportionate industrial pollution. I'm encouraged to see our city advancing fiscally responsible, energy efficient, and community-driven initiatives such as a community solar program. I strongly support requiring Entergy New Orleans to implement consolidated billing for the community solar program. A consolidated billing system will make participation more accessible by allowing customers to receive community solar benefits through a single utility bill. This streamlined approach will increase public participation, enhance the customer experience, and support the program's long-term success. Consolidated billing has been discussed for several years. It is time to advance this important component of the program. I respectfully urge the council to require Entergy New Orleans to implement consolidated billing within a reasonable timeframe and at a reasonable cost so that residents can fully benefit from the community solar program. Thank you for your leadership and your commitment to expanding equitable access to clean, affordable, and affordable energy for the people of New Orleans. Sincerely, Dr. Beverly Wright, founder and executive director of Deep South Center for Environmental Justice. Thank you. First, I want to thank the community members for being here. I hear your frustration. Entergy, do you hear the frustration from the community? The community is speaking. The community is frustrated. We are all frustrated. As Osa talked about in his comments, our legacy, our collective legacy in this room, Entergy, council, and community for this project can be to get this implemented prior to the eight-month deadline.

And I know that the innovative team at Entergy is going to work really, really hard to get that done for us. And I will work hand in glove with you all. I will have meetings as much as I need to, to check in and to see if we can get this done before, because the community needs this historic event to happen. There are going to be 700 subscribers by the end of this year to this project that will be coming online fast. And I really would like to see us work towards a goal of getting this done prior to that deadline. So starting next week, if we have to meet weekly, I will meet weekly. I want this done, and I want it done fast. We are not voting on this today, as we will vote on it at the council meeting in case we need to make any additional amendments to the resolution. Thank you all for being here today. I appreciate your efforts and your advocacy, and I look forward to getting this done. Thank you. Okay, with that, we will move on to – we have quite a bit for Sewage and Water Board and Entergy, so I'm just going to ask that representatives from Sewage and Water Board and Entergy come sit at the table, because I'm sure we'll have questions on each thing. The first one is a presentation regarding the District E outages, followed by the presentations on Tropical Storm Arthur from both Entergy and Sewage and Water Board. Thank you. Since we have one item first, can we have the table then switch up with Sewage and Water Board? Sure, yeah, that's fine. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning again, Council Member Sharonda Williams. I'm Vice President of Regulatory and Public Affairs at Entergy New Orleans. I am at the table today with our President and CEO, Deanna Rodriguez, our Vice President of Reliability, Dan Calamari, and our Senior Customer Service Manager, Jessica Williams. And we are happy to present today on the work that we have been doing on our reliability plan, and I'll turn it over to our President to get us started. Good morning, everyone. I'm happy to be here. Deanna Rodriguez, President and CEO of Entergy New Orleans. We're here to share with you some information about Entergy's service during and in the wake of Tropical Storm Arthur. As you may know, and perhaps the public does or does not know, we'd like to start over from the beginning. Just to give you a framework, we have 95,000 distribution poles, nearly 1,800 miles of distribution line, approximately 35,000 transformers, nearly 2,200 transmission structures, about 140 miles of transmission line, and 24 substation equipment numbers. Madam CEO, I don't mean to interrupt you. Madam Chair, I think we're going to get into Tropical Storm Arthur next. And that's going to be a joint discussion with you all and Sewage and Water Board. I think for the sake of this agenda item, we are focusing specifically on the outages of district units. I apologize. We'll go ahead and get started on this. And I do want to share our reliability metrics within the storm. And part of this is dealing with what happened with the Sewage and Water Board and our response and reliability in that role. Right. But the conversation around Tropical Storm Arthur is going to be a joint discussion with Sewage and Water Board. It's not going to be a separate discussion. The outages? Okay. All right. Sorry. I was reading the wrong one. So what we'll do right now, then, I'll switch over to our reliability metrics. And as shown in our last annual reliability report, Energy New Orleans has met the council's metrics for number and duration of outages. We have been doing and completed a number of projects in District E to enhance reliability, which we will cover in this presentation. Again, I would like to, and we'll reframe it again, in the context of the number of polls, the number of equipment that we have out in the community, it will give you a good insight into what we've done and what we're doing now with what's happened in District E. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dan Calamari, VP of Reliability. All right. Good morning. And we can go to the next slide. In the month of June, we came here to talk about some outages and how our system performed in the month of June. We had 82 outages in District E. This includes outages from weather, equipment, vehicles hitting our poles, mylar balloons, and any animals that may have caused outages on our systems. These do not include our planned outages that are necessary to perform work on our system. These outages may have been to an individual customer, or it could be a group of customers on a single street or inside of a neighborhood. Of these 82, 25 of them occurred during Tropical Storm Arthur. So on that one day, June 18th. The Kenilworth neighborhood has seen three different outages in June, one on June 10th, the late night on the 16th, and on the 28th of June. This area is served from an underground grid. The causes of these outages were due to damaged connections and a damaged cable. And if we go to the next slide. We have a plan to address these outages, and this is also across all of our districts. We have a similar plan and execution. The execution of the plan starts with a comprehensive inspection of our facilities and specific spots along our feeders to identify the scope of work that we need to perform. The data that's collected in these inspections is provided to our design engineers who create construction packages that are eventually issued to our crews to perform work on our system. You may have seen our crews in the neighborhood as all this work has already started. We are modernizing our system by installing hardened poles to withstand extreme wind loads. We're installing self-healing networks, which will lessen the impact to our customers during unplanned events. We have continued our vegetation management plan, our substation arrester replacement program, and we are continuing to secure our substations by installing security fencing around them to prevent theft and vandalism.

And as you look at the slide there, there is a map of District E, and this is an example of the amount of work we're doing on our system this year. As you look at the different colors, the green and purple markings, those are spots along the district that we're actually working on our feeders, replacing assets, and modernizing it. And then when you look at the purple and green lines, that's where we're actually doing vegetation trimming and spot trimming on different feeders as well to improve our performance. When the trees are moving and preventing them from brushing against our lines. This concludes our presentation today. I will mention you see a bunch of greens and purples up there. The green projects are work that's already been completed. The purples are the ones that are either in progress or planned to be completed before the end of the year. Holistically, across E&O, we have 349 projects that we are going to complete this year on our feeders, replacing assets and improving our system. We completed 118 of those projects. We have 126 actively working, and the remaining of them will be planned out throughout the remaining of the year. So I want to just kind of give the amount of work that we are doing out there in improving our system. Thank you. All right, thank you. Let me just say, while I appreciate the work you all may be doing respectfully, it's not happening fast enough for me, number one. Number two, let me be clear that the Kenilworth subdivision and North Kenilworth subdivision are two very different subdivisions. And so you're highlighting statistics from Kenilworth, which is inaccurate. It should be North Kenilworth, two very different places. So the incident that we had this weekend, for example, you're highlighting as Kenilworth and it's North Kenilworth. So let's separate those two, even though there was an outage in the Kenilworth subdivision. But where we're seeing the reoccurring outages, and let me just highlight your data that you sent, and this is just a snapshot of a long-term reoccurring problem that I continue to get excuses and no results. So on June 10, 2026, North Kenilworth, which you're identifying as Kenilworth, the cause transformer connection failed, action replaced connection duration 8.51 a.m. to 2.42 p.m. Has anybody done the math to figure out how long that was out? It's a pretty long time in the peak of summer. Have any of you spent time in the North Kenilworth subdivision? Yes. Yes? Yeah. If you did, you'll notice that it skews older. Okay? So we have older residents, some that are pretty fragile, facing reoccurring situations. June 16 and June 17, again, damaged cable, repaired the damaged cable duration 11.11 p.m. to 2.45 a.m., and then this Sunday, we know the disaster that we had. Again, transformer connection failed, replaced the connection. That duration was 7.30 p.m. to 12.30 a.m. So we're having repeated situations where transformer connection failed. So break that down for me. What does that mean in layman's terms, and why does it keep failing? Yeah. So in the Kenilworth, we have a lot of underground wires that serve our customers. Our transformers are both submersible. They're below the ground with gratings on them, and we may wind up having debris and different things that get in those manholes that could damage our connections. What we're going to be doing here is to go and do a visual inspection of these transformers. We're also going to use a thermal camera to help determine if certain connections are going bad. When do you plan to do that? We're going to be starting this in the next few days. Next few days. You didn't think it maybe would have been a good idea to do this long time ago since we've been seeing these repeated outages and the same cause of failure? You didn't maybe think we should have done what you're suggesting? I guess you're probably doing this to calm me down, right? No, we're doing it as part of our reliability plan. So it is being done. Some of these things. The good news of having or the nice thing about having underground is it's underground. The hard thing, the difficult thing about having underground equipment is that it takes longer when you do have an outage. So if you're stringing poles on two poles that are above ground, that's faster and that's done. So that is one of the reasons that the outages are as long as they are when they do occur. But this is part of our reliability program, and we apologize because I know how hot it is, and any outage of this duration is not acceptable, and we are going to address these. Apologies are just not good enough for me in this situation. I'm going to tell you why. People are running their AC units, and when they have these constant power failures, it could be causing damage to the AC unit. And the first thing you all are going to say is we assume no liability. It could cause damage to the televisions. It can cause damage to the refrigerators. It can cause damage to all kinds of things. And, again, you all are just going to say you don't assume any liability, right? What I don't understand, and what you all have not answered respectfully, is if we continue to see the same cause, right, transformer connection failed, why haven't you all gone in the ground a long time ago? Because while I just identified three snapshots, I am telling you in this particular subdivision alone and in New Orleans East alone, I represent over 27 subdivisions. That's not even taking into account the Lower Ninth Ward. So what I want to know is why haven't you all dug deeper into this issue prior to now? And you haven't even done it now. You're going to do it in the next couple days, I guess because I went ballistic over the weekend. Yeah, and I will add part of our reliability plan is to recable underground subdivisions, and we have multiple ones across E&O that we're doing at various stages. This particular subdivision that we're referring to is in our reliability plan today.

working through the engineering of the plan and to replace, work towards replacing cable in this neighborhood. The added inspections is going to help prioritize where we address the immediate concerns. So we already had a plan to start replacing cable, but these inspections are going to help prioritize where we will get the most bang for our buck first. Respectfully, let me just be clear, I'm one of the most patient people in the world. My patience has run out. I fully expect this issue to be diagnosed and I want a plan and I will compel you all to come before this council as many times as I need to until I have satisfactory results on behalf of the residents of District E. In June alone in District E, 82 outages, 25 of which were related to Arthur, which means there has been 57 non-storm related incidents in District E in June alone. That's frightening. Go ahead, Madam CEO, but that's frightening. It is, and there is also a difference in when you see each instance, it's not going to fix anything and I know this is, and I appreciate your patience, but it could be minutes and it could be the ones that we all should be concerned about, the ones that last hours. So of those 50, there are several that are instantaneous, but it is captured as a moment. So I just, I don't want you to think that all those 52 lasted three hours. Madam CEO, just last week, my power went out for less than 20 seconds, okay, and $1,000 later out of my pocket, which I didn't even call you all about, okay, because it did damage to the motherboard on my AC unit. So you know, you may look at it as, oh, this is only a couple seconds, but that could be a few thousand dollars out of the residents' pockets, okay, and I lived it and I didn't call you all about it because I'm never going to look for favoritism. What I am going to do, what I actually get paid to do, is advocate on behalf of the residents of District E. I've been doing that for the last six months and I'm most certainly going to do that today and I'm going to do it each and every day until this problem is fixed, okay. The responses that I have gotten thus far are grossly unacceptable. What I want are results. What I want is a plan of action and the residents of North Kenilworth have suffered for far too long, period, okay. I do want to highlight on a positive note, Jessica Williams, thank you for your extraordinary work. You have been beyond responsive and when nobody else is responding to me at 2.30 in the morning, I appreciate that you actually take time to respond and to follow through. So with that, I'm going to calm down a little bit and thank you, Madam Chair. I'll yield for now. Any other comments from the dais on here? I do have a couple, well, I'm sorry, it looks like. I wanted to just get an update on the real time reporting for outages affecting fewer than 500 households. Yes, Council Member and I think I've spoken with you and a couple of other Council Members in our standing meetings about this. We've been doing some internal testing on email notifications to kind of do troubleshooting on whether we can get the contemporaneous notifications to you all without delay. We did some internal testing, as we talked about during Tropical Storm Arthur. The testing showed that we were getting too many notifications and some of them didn't have accurate information. And so we're doing some additional tweaks. I've asked our team to try to roll this out to you all next week. With that said, even if we get it rolled out next week, you'll still continue to get from me the weekly outage reports that will have causation data. And also, we will still continue to do the texting in terms of outages, which all of you are on the different text chains for your respective districts and you're on all the districts. So that's where we stand. The goal is to roll that out next week. Are we going to get the text notifications for fewer than 500 as well, or will it just be email? It'll still, it'll be emails for the fewer than 500, but you'll still get the text messages as you've already been getting, as well as the weekly report that you've been getting from me. Okay. We can't, we can't do the text for fewer than 500? That's what I want. That's what I want. You want the text messages for that? Yeah. We'll look at that as well. Because we're still continuing to tweak, because we want to get the information to you as quickly as we can. But we're going to continue to tweak the email notification as we are continuing to work on this and roll it out. So there may be some tweaks along the way, but if that is what you desire, we'll look at that too. And something we spoke about a couple of months ago was the source of outages, and sometimes, you know, it's attributed to vegetation or whatever the case may be, but it's after effect of, you know, lightning and all that confusion. Have we made any progress on that front? After our meeting, I actually emailed your chief of staff with some responses that we had done in the course of... Yeah, sure. And I think that the conversation got more complicated than maybe it necessarily should have been. It really is a basic discussion about if there is a heavy lightning storm, any kind of equipment may have some residual damages that might not be immediately viewable. And then we communicated that there may be some latent damage that manifests in an outage that we don't categorize as lightning necessarily, it's categorized as equipment, but potentially the lightning might have caused the equipment failure because it was a heavy lightning storm or something of that nature. So it's kind of a common sense way of looking at it, but I think in the context of how we responded to some RFIs, I think the conversation got more complicated than it necessarily should have been.

Just to clarify, Sharonda, for me, I want to have the best information possible, and what I don't want to have occurring is Entergy saying, we're having these outages because of latent impacts of lightning storms when it could be preventative maintenance issues. And so that's where I'm going with this point. And I think in the communication that I sent to you, we talked about some of our technology that we're using for thermal imaging and that kind of thing to identify potential weaknesses in equipment. And so we'll continue to do that. And we, again, categorize them as equipment failure in spite of the fact there could have been a lightning incident. So that's what we'll continue to do as well, is just categorize it as equipment failure. Yeah. Please, please do the equipment failure in light of a tropical storm, Arthur, did you guys use the thermal imaging to check for any of your infrastructure for vulnerabilities? So we started a process late last year, and we have continuing it, where we look back at where we have repeat outages, and we go out there and do these thermal inspections and look for latent issues that could be out there. And we've inspected numerous feeders over the course of last year and this year and made these priority repairs for situations like this. And some of these can be caused by a car hitting a pole, too. So that is... Yeah, we get a lot of those in District D. And you may have, and what we're, and this is actually one of the ways that we're starting to use AI, where it is predictive in nature, where if there is an accident in a certain area, what we're starting to do is enter that data to know exactly, okay, well, where would that reach be if there is latent equipment failure somewhere else? So that's also new that Dan and his team have brought to bear. And we're trying to use technology in a way that is predictive, more predictive. And then also, you know, this is a very hands-on, for the most part, visual inspection kind of business, and it's been around for 100 years. So this is where we're trying to use a new technology and also AI to help us look at and find the repeated outages so that we can address them more quickly. But we're learning that part of it. Okay, so for me, after a storm, I just want you guys to be more proactive. Look for frayed wiring, loose connections, use your thermal imaging, whatever the case may be, because doing that proactively can prevent outages, like Councilman Hughes was just talking about. It could prevent future outages if you spot something that occurred after a storm or whatever the case may be. And so that's what I'm trying to get us to do, to reduce the number of outages that we have in this city, and I think that's something that can go a long way. And certainly, Councilmember, that is our goal, too, absolutely. It is not in our interest to have any customer out ever, and we have to improve, and we are trying to improve our efforts on reducing those outages. Okay. Thank you all so much. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Councilmember Harris? Yeah, I want to turn to the Lower Garden District. Where are we with AT&T coordination and moving wires from naked poles? I think, and we've communicated by email. We do have our weekly resilience meeting today with further updates on that, but the last meeting that occurred, essentially they were coordinating and increasing their level of coordination between our contractor and AT&T. I think the last count that I saw is around 50 naked poles had been removed. I think my email to you said 15, but I think our contractor provided us an update last week that it's closer to 50 at this point. And so they are proactively going out every week with their people, looking for naked poles, pulling them down, and they're improving their coordination efforts with AT&T to make sure communication wires are pulled as soon as the work is done. And what about the relocation of the two? We did a walkthrough of the two problematic poles that were literally in front of a fence that was an entrance and egress, and the other one that was just randomly placed. Our contractor committed to moving both of those poles. And I'll get you an update on the status of that work, but they've committed to moving both of them. And when will you be out of that community? I mean, right now it's just roads are torn up. You guys are there. SWEBNO's there. DPW's there. And so people are just really frustrated. work in that community is scheduled to be done by year end. I hope it's before that. And I hope that we can schedule a walkthrough. I know it's hot, but I think it's important to schedule a walkthrough to see what has been removed, what's left to be removed, and get AT&T on the ground with us. I was so disappointed that they weren't there for that walkthrough. So I'll have Matt reach out to coordinate that again with you all. Yes, we will do it. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Okay, I think we have two public comments on this one. Yes, Madam Chair. Jesse George, followed by Sage Michael. Jesse George, once again, on behalf of the Alliance for Affordable Energy. Again, we thank the Council for addressing this important issue. This continues to be an ongoing frustration for New Orleanians. You know, Entergy likes to point to balloons and lightning strikes, but I don't know if you can see this bar graph that I'm holding, but this is Entergy's own reporting on outages. That big green section is equipment failures. The big yellow section is scheduled interruptions. So basically, their poor maintenance of their system is the leading cause, by far, of these outages. And I agree with Councilman Hughes' sentiment that the pace of these repairs is not going fast enough. One thing that we would encourage you to do, and we've heard talk from the dais before, from Councilman Willard and others, about strengthening the reliability standards that are in place currently. Ms.

Rodriguez rightly pointed out that Entergy has been in compliance with those standards every year they've been in place, and yet we continue to experience these frequent outages. One way that you could strengthen those reliability standards is by closing the major loophole that Entergy enjoys by excluding what they call major event days from that calculation of their reliability. So outages caused by major storms are not included in that calculation. And that totally denies the reality of the situation that we're in, which is that extreme weather is the new norm. Excluding those extreme weather events from the reliability calculation gives Entergy an out, and that is the reason that we continue to experience these outages. I encourage you to strengthen those reliability standards and close that loophole. Thank you. Thank you. Sage Michael. I don't see Sage. Oh, there's Sage. Man, Jesse, you tall. Thank you. Just to echo Jesse right quick, y'all remember the pole falling in the river, and y'all remember the gas plant not working when we needed it to work. All those failures count for us, that we pay for. And so I really want to talk about, I'm thankful for Councilman Hughes, you're really speaking for New Orleans and really demanding accountability. I really appreciate you speaking for us, New Orleans and New Orleans, the frustrations that we all hold. Really, thank you for that. And everyone up here. And what I did hear from Entergy, almost like a scramble plan, not an upfront work order like process. And so while they're having weekly resilience meetings, instead of like getting a call going run up and find it, that should need to be, if you replace the pole, then there's a mechanism, a matrix that follows with that coordination that must happen on a pole replacement plan. And so, and I agree, you have poles that's dangling in the sidewalks. I've seen that, that dangling from the sidewalk, wires just dangling, it's a safety hazard for many people. I've documented that as well, and with no accountability, and we're waiting on some coordination from some entities to just come by while the community can't use that sidewalk, and it's not ADA accessible, and that's not safe. And so we have to leave work sites in a safe for our vehicles, and safe for our pedestrians at all times. But also while we have sewage and water board here, when y'all doing some pole replacement, sometimes y'all hit a water line. And I've documented that as well, they got one on the Duwai Canal right now. So when y'all have these agency instances where a pole get hit down, and it's, we got to find out who's really culpable of that. But I want to thank Energy in a matter when, you know, it would say Energy, and Energy coordinated with me, we went out to the site, it wasn't Energy. And I'm thankful Energy, who did coordinate with me, and sewage and water board took care of it. But once again, sewage and water board is here. Each work site, while it's getting repaired, must be left in a safe condition for our city citizens. It's an OSHA violation. Thank you. Thank you, Sage. I have one more from Morgan Clevenger. Good morning, Council. Thank you so much. First up, real quick, some housekeeping. There are no agendas anywhere. So thank you, Jesse. And thank you, Sage. I want to thank Jason Hughes, Councilmember Jason Hughes, because what you're saying is an indication of what's happening across the city. We know that Hurricane Ida five years ago, the biggest cat four, unassessed, unaddressed hurricane to ever hit New Orleans, we are still not recovered from that. In District D, particularly around the 7th Ward and Broad, drive by the Broadside Theater one day, and you're going to see that energy pole at a 60-degree angle, and it's been like that for five years. We were reporting cross harms. We were reporting dangling wires, you know, for the last three years, and then we stopped because nothing ever happened. Nothing ever got fixed. And it is energy, the cost of utilities is probably one of the highest cost burdens we have in this city for everyone. And it is not fair to the community to constantly be experiencing these outages, the failure of infrastructure. And lastly, I would just like to say at this point, the impact of Tropical Storm Arthur is significant. And I urge and implore you all to declare a state of emergency, because we know we have many homeowners and residents who are severely impacted by this, and it's not being talked about. There are no resources stood up, and it makes people feel like there is no plan for the next thing that happens. So let's take it more seriously, and I thank you for your advocacy. Madam Chair, the Council President has some more. I apologize. We are having, once again, issues with Granicus where we can't actually log into the meeting, so we're having to like flag each other down with like smoke signals to speak. I do want to comment on some things that were said. I think it's important to note, and it wasn't really highlighted, and unfortunately some groups have been here for a while and would have caught this. This was the basis of the argument with Entergy under the previous Council regarding the resilience plan, which is that there is a conflation of resilience versus reliability. The Council and the public is willing to fund new resilience projects. The challenge we have, and it's the fight we've had with Energy for years, is we already pay for reliability. When you're paying your bill each month, you are – it is incumbent upon our provider to do preventative maintenance to avoid outages that can be prevented. That is not resilience. That is reliability.

When a lightning actuator – and we've had this debate many a time – when a lightning actuator has been struck so many times that eventually it goes out on a sunny day when there's no lightning, that is a maintenance issue because they are not properly doing the inventory of existing equipment to make sure that it is being rotated out on a timely basis. As Councilwoman Willard and I were discussing a second ago, if you drive in front of Dillard right now, there is a pole that is sitting there at a 60-75 degree angle, and the challenge we have nationally as regulators – it's not a challenge, it's just the battle we have with those who regulate – is there is a tension, and it is a bad tension, between doing preventative maintenance or doing emergency repairs. Emergency repairs are more expensive and more profitable. And so you could replace the pole, which is inconvenient for residents, is a planned outage, pole goes down, new pole goes up. That is cheaper for us than the pole falling down, the whole neighborhood being wiped out, we're all calling, screaming at energy to go fix it. What's frustrating for us, as part of right now – I know the Chairwoman right now has received a request for the next resilience plan – our struggle as a Council is we do not want you to pay extra for reliability, because reliability is not resilience. So part of how we comb through the prior resilience request is, we are not going to build in new money for reliability when it should already be covered. When we want to spend money on resilience, it's to do new things. Like if we're switching out old wooden poles with poles that are more wind resistant, that's one thing. If you've waited to replace a pole that's laying at a 75 degree angle, and you're trying to figure out a way to get around that cost by either getting the new wind resistant pole that we're paying for under resilience, when it's been unreliable for 5, 10, 15 years because you haven't replaced it, how is that fair to residents? Because you're ducking the actual cost that's out there that you are being paid through your monthly bills to deal with reliability, and swapping it out with resilience money. So part of the reason why, as a council, we are so critical, and we are so wary of how we deal with resilience is, we do not want to make you pay with resilience dollars for reliability issues, and honestly, it would be easier for us as a council to process resilience requests if reliability was sound. But when you look at what happened today, when you look at what happened with Kenilworth, what Councilmember Hughes had said, when you see reliability going so poorly, it really makes it more difficult for us to approve resilience plans because that can be perceived, and practically speaking, like we're just paying you extra money to be reliable. And that's a problem. So when you hear complaints like you've heard from Councilmember Willard, when you hear complaints you've heard from all of us over the years, Ms. Spears, where are we on the inventory that we were supposed to have, like, how many years ago? Can you give us an update on that right quick? Can you give the public an overview of what the council made that request on inventory? Council Member, I believe what you're referring to is as part of docket UD-1704. When we initially were experiencing reliability issues based in District D at the time, the council conducted a thorough docket which resulted in an investigation of whether or not prudent investments had been made. At the conclusion of that docket in 2018, we, as I believe in fulfillment of a quanta report, we requested, ordered that Entergy begin a better inventory management system. I believe in conversations with Dan that steps have been made in that direction, but we still have some more work to do. So, is there today a reliable inventory system that shows us that they are taking inventory of all existing equipment and that equipment that is outdated or old is being inventoried properly, checked, and replaced on a timely basis? The inventory that I have seen does not meet that standard, no. That kind of says it all. 2018. When you, not to re-invoke something that was a point of, I would say almost Council Member Hughes-esque rage, many of you may recall when I lost my mind up here when Entergy had Operation Gridiron, which was a PR campaign to convince the public we should charge you more money for resilience. And part of my argument at that time, and it's why the council did not approve Operation Gridiron, is until we get reliability under control, we're not doing any blank checks on resilience because we do not want you to pay extra for what you're already entitled to. And the sooner that Entergy can get reliability under control, the sooner we can collectively move forward on large resilience projects. Because as long as reliability is still a dumpster fire, we can't really look at any resilience request without parsing through it to make sure reliability isn't in the resilience request. I would encourage you, 2018 significantly predates my time on the council. The fact that we don't have an inventory plan that we can all point to and collectively agree solves the problem is going to continually undermine resilience efforts to get robust investment. Thank you. Madam Chair, so in closing on this item, and thank you for your indulgence on... I just don't have a button to press, but I wish to... Oh, I'm sorry. Council Member Green. I can't see a button, so I couldn't comment, but I just want to... That's not working. Okay. Okay. That's the issue. So I just wanted to say one thing. I do want to end on a somewhat positive note, and I want Entergy to know that I'm not being silent on an issue that involves District D. I've seen the poles replaced. I've seen the metal poles that have replaced wooden poles. There are hundreds of them in District D.

What was brought up today was that there are concerns that when we call in about certain issues, for example, the leaning pole, that it should be given immediate attention because it's an immediate problem. But the 7th Ward has seen the poles that have been replaced. The 9th Ward has seen some of the poles that have been replaced. There are still hundreds to be done, but I want you all to also do maybe a little bit better job relative to the public relations side. We had a press conference. It was fine. But then there needs to be follow-up. There needs to be follow-up at your meetings to let folks know what is going on. And also, I've suggested this kind of before, a regular meeting where people can come and talk to Entergy and bring up things that you may not see. For example, the leaning pole on Broad Street, it's been reported. The leaning pole on Kluwe, it's been reported at the end of the day. But Pierce, Huff, I think, sent that in. But the bottom line is that, look, I want to go to this fact. I've seen the poles that have been replaced. I've seen them replaced on near Elysian Fields and in the 7th Ward and the like. And sometimes pushing up a pole is a little bit more difficult for a variety of reasons. But talk more about the things that have been done so that we as a council have more that we can go and talk to our community about. And consider those regular meetings that are just Entergy, every quarter, every six months, however it is, so that people can bring in their specific concerns that they feel haven't been addressed and at least know that it's been heard. Saturday's meeting was attended by 250 people. It involved the Sewage and Water Board and Public Works. And it was a good thing. People were able to turn in cards on issues that they felt hadn't been addressed. And that's a valuable component of the communication. And it doesn't have to happen all the time, but it's a valuable component. It's incumbent upon us to do a better job at communicating what has been changed. I do want to note that the poles, people can call in. And Council Member Harris started this a few years ago where they can call 311 to report a leaning pole. Also of note, we'll check on the poles noted here. They're not always our poles. So they might be an AT&T pole. And if it were up to me, I'd put labels that say AT&T. And often, also, if there are wires hanging, it may be communication fiber and not our wires. Because that is an absolute safety issue, we would not allow that and certainly would not want anybody to be harmed. And that is a confusion often noted by the public. They think it's our wire or our pole. When we get those reports, we go check either way. And we'll go determine if it's our pole or not. And then the frustration is where we're noting the poles in the Lower Garden District. Then it takes coordinating with AT&T or Cox to go remove those poles or fix them. But I think it's fair that you should be able to explain that to the public. Absolutely. But a way to do it is not necessarily at this City Council committee meeting, which is fine. But overall, once a quarter, just meet at a university and let people come in with their pictures and their complaints about particular items so that people on the public level can feel that they have an outlet beyond us. Because interestingly enough, the City Council does a lot because we get a lot of requests. That's not necessarily within our purview to be able to answer technical questions relative to the pole, relative to whether it's an AT&T wire, and the like. Just keep that in mind. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilmember. I just want to follow up on that question, too. Thank you for doing the press event with us. Our Public Relations and Public Affairs team is also in contact with the Mayor's Office of Community Engagement to do the next quarterly meeting that you just referenced happened on Saturday. So that will be an opportunity. But we're also continuing to do our Community Engagement Board meetings, et cetera, in different districts. We'll continue to talk to you about other opportunities and ways to communicate through your newsletter as well. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Madam Chair, thank you for your indulgence on this important item for District E. Attorney Spears, I will get with you and the Council President Entergy. I don't think we've gotten to know each other that well, so I'm going to compel you all to come before this Council on a monthly basis, and you all will appear and reappear and reappear until I have the satisfaction that the issues in District E are being resolved. So thank you very much. We're happy to do that. Thank you, Councilmembers. Okay. So next we have our presentation with Entergy and SWBNO on Tropical Storm Arthur. So Sewage and Water Board, would you come down to the table, please? And we'll have the Entergy do their PowerPoint and then Sewage and Water Board. You can do your half of the presentation that is in regards to the power station, and then we will do questions from the dais, and then you can continue with the rest of your presentation for the other issues that you have. Thank you. You can go ahead. All right. Thank you. So I started a little bit wrong the first time, so I'm going to go straight to the information about Tropical Storm Arthur. We had approximately 6,700 of our 209,000 customers that were impacted, and certainly we're proud of the work our team did, many of whom are sitting in the audience, to restore power to these customers. Our team worked tirelessly to restore our customers by midnight on the day of the storm, and that's less than 24 hours. In that time, we repaired 12 damaged poles, 21 cross arms, and we replaced eight transformers. It is important to note, and we did speak to this a moment ago, that the structures of the structures that were repaired, none of them were our newly installed resilient structures.

Council Member Green noted that fact that as those poles have gone up, they're more resilient. As you can see, our work to harden the grid has allowed us to have our customers' power restored more quickly, and we look forward to working with you to continue this work to harden the grid so that we are better able to withstand tropical weather systems. Now I would like Vice President of Regulatory and Public Affairs Sharonda Williams to address our engagement with the Sewage and Water Board after Tropical Storm Arthur. On May 20th, I think, was one of the questions that was presented to us to discuss today. On May 20th, we communicated that there was an outage on the transmission grid due to an equipment failure, and that was a communication made to Sewage and Water Board. It's important to note, at that time, the Sullivan substation never lost power, and this is the same type of information that we would provide to any of our customers if asked the cause of a power interruption. This is consistent with our usual and customary practices. After the May 20th power disturbance, we did not receive any additional inquiries from Sewage and Water Board about the power supply to the Sullivan substation. If there is an inquiry, we provide support. customers with information related to the cause of an outage, but we do not provide engineering consulting services to our customers. They must seek that type of advice on their own. I'll note on page 5 of the presentation that Sewage and Water Board has attached to the agenda, they noted that there was a conclusion or a statement that there was some anomaly outside of normal operations that exceeded typical ride-through capabilities. I just want to note that that was not a communication that we made to Sewage and Water Board. I think that that was an assumption or a conclusion that they made based on our communication to them that there was an equipment failure on the transmission grid. Post-Tropical Storm Arthur, Sewage and Water Board then made additional inquiries about the power supply to the power complex. Again, we advised Sewage and Water Board there was no power interruption at the Sullivan substation. We further advised Sewage and Water Board that a voltage sag occurred. A voltage sag is a temporary drop in voltage that can be caused by some instability on the grid. Entergy posts its power quality standards on its website that explain that voltage sags may occur, and the standards also explain that voltage sags generally last for less than a second. This information is available for all customers to review prior to putting any of their equipment into service. Since Tropical Storm Arthur, we have met several times at Sewage and Water Board to discuss the settings on their equipment. During those meetings, we have specifically stated that as per our power quality standards, any setting that instantly shuts down the power complex with a voltage sag may not be the best configuration. To ensure that both Entergy and Sewage and Water Board are appropriately analyzing the issue and taking the proper steps to ensure the equipment is properly configured, we suggested that a third-party expert be retained, and Sewage and Water Board agreed to jointly hire a third-party expert to advise us on what needs to be done to prevent this in the future. And that concludes our presentation on this issue, unless there are questions. We're going to hold questions until after Sewage and Water Board has made their presentation on this item. One second, we'll have someone operate our slides for us. Is this one right? Yeah, there's a lot that I want you to look up. It's three lots called for. Is it Barbara Ramsway? It's not Barbara. It's someone else. Can you tell me what it is? We have somebody come up with some places. Oh, same with you. We'll have to do it if you want. I'm happy to do it if you want. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. JP? I'm going to hold right there. They're about to start. Everybody sees how involved I am. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to speak before you today. We acknowledge the concerns regarding the temporary interruption of drainage pumping during the tropical storm Arthur, and we'll discuss that in detail today. Unfortunately, while the impacts due to the event were minimal, we recognize that it can have very more impactive influence. We are here today to ensure you and the public that we are taking this event very seriously. We've been in touch with Energy to understand more about the performance of the transmission grid, and we have already made adjustments to settings in our equipment. Even though this situation did occur, we want to assure you that our power system is still significantly improved from relying on older turbines and that we are still in a much better position than previous years going into hurricane season. We've incorporated the lessons learned from this event into our planning and operating paradigm for the new power complex. This was a large investment that has been well thought out and designed. We're at the point now we're making minor changes to it. We have multiple layers of contingency that will serve the city for years to come. Next, we will look at the power complex. Several years ago, we knew that a major investment in the power system was needed due to the age and condition of the facility. First priority was to address the urgent risk associated with the aging 25 hertz turbines that we had. The frequency changers and substations are the solution to that problem. Instead of relying on older equipment, we are now connected to the transmission grid and can supply the power needed to operate the drainage system. We are and have been using frequency changers for over six months. It has already been used successfully for multiple major rain events with no issue, including the second weekend of Jazz Fest and the Memorial Day rain event.

We continue to fine tune this equipment and make adjustments as needed, which is to be expected with a large electrical system such as this one. Before we go to the next slide, since we have everyone at the table, if you're not prepared for this question, I sincerely would be surprised considering it was the question of the entire week of Arthur. There was an interruption of the pumps during Arthur. Who is responsible for the interruption? Because obviously we've heard Sewage and Water Board allude that Energy had some responsibility. We have seen responses by Energy that it is not your responsibility. So you're both at the table. Who bears the responsibility for the pumps tripping? I would say at this point we need to have better communications and we need to work together. Now what we're doing and have already done is reset the machinery so that it would cover Originally it was 80% of normal voltage. We've reset the changers so now it takes 70%. That's below the 72% that was already set before. Now we're going to have a third party that would look at their system. And this answers your question. The third party will look at their system. The third party is going to also look at our settings and help us develop a system and settings control so that we are not in the situation we had before. Okay, I know I'm breaking the rules. One follow-up. Energy, I need you to respond. What apparently you're saying is that it was an equipment issue. As we've shown, this is not like a council that is particularly friendly to Energy, but if it was an equipment issue, was there an interruption of power to the equipment? The substation never lost power. Whose fault is it, the power that the equipment tripped? We didn't lose power, but there was a fluctuation. And I'll let our engineer speak. But there was a fluctuation that was explained to us was an anomaly. Okay, and I'll let our engineer speak. But, guys, see, I'm trying to remain so calm today, but you all make it so hard. And I've said this repeatedly. We ask very direct questions at a very elementary level, and we get this technical, academic, pontificated response. The council president's question was pretty direct. Who bears responsibility? It's not a trick question. It's not a Pearl Harbor. Does Energy bear the responsibility? Does Sewage and Water Board bear the responsibility? And for the record, while we're being transparent with the public, what I learned by accident, this was not the first time it happened. It happened before, and we were never notified. So who bears the responsibility? That's the question. Don't give me an engineering, technical, all-around-the-world response. Just say Energy bears the responsibility or Sewage and Water Board bears the responsibility. Not a trick question. Do you mind going to slide four? Two more slides, yes. Thank you, that one. So to answer your question, I just want to provide this visual regarding the voltage that we're talking about. I just want to know, respectfully, I don't want a visual. See, this is why the public loses faith in organizations, because they just can't get direct answers. Guys, this is not a trick question. So who bears the responsibility? The settings on the frequency changer were set to trip at 80% of their voltage. And on DringArthur, the voltage sag that we saw was at 72%. Madam President, I mean, Madam Chair, I'm going to respect you as the chair, but let me just say, I will hold everybody in this committee until midnight tonight, until we get a direct answer to this question. So I'll go get some popcorn in case you all get hungry, but maybe you can figure out how to answer the question. Nobody's departing until I get a direct answer. And I think, let's pause for a second, because we keep hearing from Sewage and Water Board. Energy, here's your opportunity today. Give a direct answer. Whose responsibility is this? So my lawyer hat is kicking in, and I don't want to use words, fault and responsibility, but as I stated, let's think of it as two sides here. The Energy side and our substation never lost power. The Sewage and Water Board side had a voltage sag that impacted their equipment and caused it to turn off automatically. Voltage sags are common on the grid. That is why power quality standards for energy are on our website for any customer or business that is opening a business to review them so they can give them to their own engineers who are erecting their equipment so they can tweak it how they need to. Power to our substation was never lost. Okay. This is getting close to an answer. Did the power sag go below the perimeters that are set in your contract or on your website? No. Okay. This incident, and we have Mr. Calamari here, but it was a voltage sag that lasted 64 milliseconds. and their equipment turned off automatically. Our power quality standards suggest that you have voltage sags that last for less than a second, and your equipment should realize that that is a function of the grid and shouldn't automatically turn off. That is true, but also at the same time, voltage sags, the various levels of voltage sags. We are set at 80% of normal voltage. What happened on June 18th was 70%. It's important to note that what happened on May 20th was 40%, and nationally we looked at charts. That's a very rare anomaly to go that low, and so while we're responsible for the settings and we take responsibility for that, and we've already within a day of the situation adjusted our settings, I think it's fair to say that we are expecting a certain level of consistency of power from Entergy, and that the 40%, as it was said to me, or relayed to me, was an anomaly. Okay. Since we're just going to do questions now, I'm going to go into my questions. We have the rest of our presentation. No, it's all right. I also have a question. Look, I think we can just go through the slides as we go with my questions.

How are you working with your regulator, the council, to ensure you're getting everything you need from Entergy? Well, as situations come up, we'll bring it to the attention of this committee, since we're here monthly, and we've been working very closely with Councilmember Hughes and his staff, and if there were questions or things that we need assistance with, we would bring it up. This is the first conversation we've had with the committee since this occurrence. Have there been any other unreported power failures other than the one on May 20th? No. At what point did you... No, there were two on May 20th, one in the morning, one in the evening, but that's all that has taken place, the May 20th event. Okay, and did you speak to Entergy after that one? On the 20th, we had some email exchange regarding that specific instance, and there was not a specific follow-up regarding that, other than to understand that the issue that caused that issue had been addressed specifically. And the cause of the issue was power sags? There was... The voltage sags? There was something in the... Yes, voltage sags related to something that happened on the transmission grid that impacted our facility. Did you discuss at that time, on this slide, the frequency changer operating parameters? No, I think that that was a lessons learned for us, to have both organizations to have come together and to have that conversation at that time. We were informed that this was an issue that had happened on the transmission line, it did affect our system. We took that, using our data, saw that it was a very low voltage sag, and in retrospect, this was an opportunity for us to collaborate together on this topic. Okay, so while you haven't had any power failures other than that day, are you aware, was this the first time that you were experiencing voltage sags? Yes, May 20th was the first time that we had experienced that issue. But that was the only time that it was enough to actually cause the equipment to shut off? That was... We'll have to go back and look at our data regarding what other voltage sags our equipment has seen, but this was the only time that it had shut off until then. So do you know how often the system has experienced these voltage sags? We are having to look at that now. Okay. The electrical settings and corresponding events which would lead to the frequency changers tripping, including if the settings can be modified, who was responsible for configuring and testing the frequency changers to ensure compatibility with the substation during construction? Yeah, so I just want to note that the equipment is certainly compatible with the substation. It was designed to operate within a normal range of plus or minus 10% of a regular voltage, and that is based on industry standards for the transmission grid. The manufacturer set their trip limitations at 80% of normal, which is below the 90% plus or minus 10%. You said the manufacturer set that? The manufacturer set that, and set that. You know, the equipment needs to be protected, right? And so it's a protective mechanism, and when it sees a voltage sag, it shuts off to prevent damage to the equipment itself. So this is ultimately a protective mechanism for the equipment, but I want to be clear, we have been in touch with the manufacturer and have been discussing changing the settings, how low they can go. Right now, we have already sent them to 70% and are in those conversations to see if we can go lower. I don't know how low yet, but we would have to also understand if there would be any downstream impacts to, say, the pumps if there was a much lower voltage, but we're already working through that. So was any of that testing, I mean, could this be tested when you guys had the six, seven, eight month delay in the power station coming online? You did around several series of testing. Was this not part of that testing? So knowing that the equipment would trip wouldn't change, I think, the outcome, right, of that. So if it was set at 80, it was set at 80 in terms of knowing what the expectation was in terms of the grid performance. That's what we're working through now. And how did you all come up with adjusting it, the setting down to 70%? That was a conversation that we had with Endergy following Tropics Storm Arthur, understanding that 72% was the voltage tag that was seen that day and understanding that 70% is, well, I think is, if not the majority, quite a bit of the voltage tags that could be seen. And so that was based on those conversations that we had with Endergy at that time. And that's based on data that Endergy, you all have, and that would be the reason why you advised them on that setting? So we also referred them to our power quality standards. That's where you ultimately need to go. And to have ride-through capabilities, you have to accommodate the voltage sag, but you have to give some time for the voltage sag to come up. This is, in milliseconds, is the time that we're looking for to allow that voltage to come back to where it's in that stable range that you mentioned her equipment is allowed to operate in. But you have to allow for time for that voltage to come. When we were around in the Tropical Storm Arthur, we were about 54 milliseconds. And if you Google different things about, hey, what is time, what is milliseconds, it takes like 100 milliseconds just to blink. That is how quickly the voltage came back up to a stable area of where it was. These power standards that I have here, this is what you all are referring to. When was this given? Was this given to Sewage and Water Board? That's on our customer website, so any customer that comes on to our access for service has that available to them all the time.

But was it ever specifically given to Sewage and Water Board to follow for this substation? I assumed as any construction, if you're building a house and you go to your contractor, your contractor would pull that information so that they can work within our restrictions and requirements of power quality. So it is made available to all customers. And we were never asked to have a meeting about that in particular, so I'm assuming that that was already something that was done in the building or in the equipment that they chose. And just one other thing. That's not just unique to NTG's system. It's based off of ANSI standards. So any electrical engineer would be utilizing those same standards in their designs. Okay. So Sewage and Water Board, have you seen these before? And I guess this is a $300 million power complex, so I guess why, if you haven't seen this prior to today or even in the last few weeks, how was there not more coordination between you and NTG on this power complex before we even got to this point? There has been, there was many years of coordination getting up to this point, right? There was a lot of coordination with our two organizations and with previous councils. We generally understood that there would be times when the transmission grid may not be available. And so I think we're learning more about the performance right now of our specific substation and how it interacts with the grid. But there was always, we always understood that there could be times when it would not be available. That is not exactly the situation that happened here. I just want to be clear in terms of planning for the unavailability of the grid. That's always been part of our planning. Okay. What does that mean? Yes. What is the plan for if it's unavailable and why would it be unavailable? Right. So if you don't mind, I'm sorry, going back a couple of slides to, there was one with a diagram on it actually of our system. One more. Other direction. I'm sorry. There we go. Go forward one. Right there. Okay. All right. Thank you. So I wanted to provide the graphical description of the power system just for some additional indication on this topic. So the power, the substation is our primary source of 60 hertz power. We take that and convert it to 25 hertz power using three new static frequency changers. And those are what's used to power our drainage pumps as well as some of our puddle water pumps. In the event that the substation or the transmission grid is not available for whatever reason, we have seen that in the past with Hurricane Ida certainly, we have turbine six and now turbine seven is our backup. And so that is the contingency plan for 60 hertz power for the frequency changers. And of course we have our older equipment as well in the wings. Okay. So since we're on this slide, actually I want to talk about one of these future enhancements that you're discussing, cogeneration. Wouldn't that decrease the reliability and increase the wear and tear on the new turbines? So it would not be our intent to do that on a daily basis. That would be in the event that we were approaching a strong storm where there could be concern about grid reliability. And so that would allow us to be able to utilize our turbines in parallel with the grid. grid and be able to swap over power sources. So we have to work with the grid operator, MISO, to enter into an agreement to do that, and we're already working through that. But again, that would not be a daily item. Okay, so at what instance would you use this code generation? Our Arthur, Tropic Storm Arthur, would have been a great example for us to do that. That's considered a big storm? Well, I think that as we're learning and as we're going through this, that is an option that we have available to us, and if it's an option, we should use it. And I think it's fair to say if we have Arthur and we think something even stronger is coming, we're always prepared not to use the frequency changers, but to use the turbines and go into what we call island mode and be more resilient and be able to supply our own power. But wasn't the whole purpose of this substation so that we wouldn't have to use the turbines? That is true, but there are still situations where if the storm is strong enough, it is best for us to turn on the turbines and use it and have greater confidence in our protection. Okay, but we used them in Tropical Storm Arthur and they failed, so I guess, what are your plans to prevent this from happening so we can actually use the $300 million power station that we built? I want to be clear that we absolutely are using it and have been using it very successfully. So this is part of the adjustments and refinements that we're making as we go along. In terms of using the new equipment and the adjustment for Arthur, during Hurricane, I'm sorry, during Tropical Storm Arthur, we only had Turbine 6 available to us. And so that would only be able to provide about 20 megawatts of backup power. As of this weekend, we now have Turbine 7 available to us. So that puts us in a much better position. I think it's important to note too, that at the time of procurement of the equipment, which was in 2021, we were not provided specific voltage variation data for the Sullivan substation as part of the conceptual planning for the power complex. At this point, we're in a situation where we are tweaking what the settings are. And so, and I think with a project this large, that's gonna happen to a certain degree. We know within a day or two, we were able to make an adjustment that would have captured what happened on June 18th. June 18th was 72% of normal voltage. We were able to change to 70%. That's good.

But I am pushing the engineers and the manufacturer to see how much further lower can we go? How much lower can we go? In a perfect world, I wanna go beyond 40 and lower, but there is always, as I saw and looked at the voltage lag graphs to show the percentage of times this happens, that it is low that you'll get to 40, but it can happen. And so to have, I don't know if we'll ever have a system that's 100% we know will never go below X and we'll be able to match it with our settings, but we're trying to get there. And so we're pushing the manufacturer and the contractor to do that. And I think it's good. I wanna say that Energy has been a good partner, that they are meeting with us, that they have a third party that's gonna look at their side and see how they can make corrections. And then we'll look at our side to see how we can better tweak what we're doing. We've made it through a couple of storms already, confidently. This one, there was a blip. We need to go in, analyze it, work together, tweak and make the adjustments that we can. But I don't know if we'll ever have a system that is 100% we can cover all low voltage, unless we go to island mode and make the switch to the turbines. Okay, and how long is this third party gonna take to do? I mean, we're in hurricane season now. I mean, we have constant rainstorms in the areas that if this gets turned off, it's half of my district floods. So how long is this third party? It's my understanding that he did a visit with Sewage and Water Board and their system last Thursday. He's already got some initial recommendations that I think he's gonna share with us after some phone calls this week. So that will give us some direction. And of course, in our weekly meeting, I'll give you further updates as that process goes along, but we don't anticipate it taking too terribly long for him to complete it. Okay, so like a month? Oh, certainly, yes. Okay, what redundancies does Sewage and Water Board have in place for power failures? So I will go back to having turbine six and seven as backup, the opportunity for the future cogeneration opportunity. And we do have turbine five presently out of service, but we are working to get that back in service by July 15th. We have the older EMDs. They are not as reliable, but they are still there. And we also have rotary frequency changers that are in our system. And so we do have additional sources going back to the older 25 hertz equipment. Okay, and how does Sewage and Water Board utilize natural gas generally, and how was it utilized in preparation and during tropical storm, Arthur? And what's the current agreement with Delta Utilities? We're working through revising our agreements with Delta now based on what we understand is a need to change our agreements with them based on our change in use. We're not even using nearly as much gas as we had, but we do need to make sure that we're able to, we have the gas available to us. And so there's some reserve capacity that I understand we need to be planning for, and we're working with them now. And what would that be used for during a storm? And did you use it for tropical storm, Arthur? For turbine six and seven, that would be correct. So we did not use it for, we ended up not using it for that, for that event. I think that's all I've got right now for questions. Council Member Green? We've heard a couple of times a reference to the third party. Could you explain that a little bit more, who it is and what the responsibilities of the third party are? Yeah, so it's a electrical engineering company that specializes in protection and control. Their name is PCS 2000. How were they chosen, and what is their responsibility? So they are SMEs that Entergy looks for, especially when we're in situations like this, studying power quality. They're very familiar with our system and can do some expert judgment for us. Is that something that Entergy is paying for? We're splitting the cost with the Swidge and Water Board. And it's run by a professor out of LSU. We've used him for large industrial customers in other parts of our corporation, and they come in, and the reason they're helpful is because they look at both sides. So they'll look at our system, and then they'll look at the customer system. Council Member McCarron asked all of the questions, the very good questions, but I kind of have a fundamental concern, and address it with me so that I understand it. Treat me as somebody who just reads and doesn't go through it. A voltage sag of a millisecond, or less than a millisecond, basically compromised flood protection in an area of our city, the Lakeview area. And it did, so it really compromised the entire city, but it affected Lakeview. Tell me what I'm missing in terms of what happens the next time that there's a voltage sag in its 72 or its lower or the like. Very simple to the public. What's being done now so that if a storm appears in the Gulf as it did so quickly with Arthur, or a tropical storm, that a voltage sag, which I consider to kind of be a power outage, doesn't make us have the same problem? I think there's two things we're doing. One, we'll be watching and measuring the storm to have a better understanding, should we go ahead and turn on the turbines and have that protection? But also number two, as I said, immediately after what happened on June 18th, we adjusted from 80% of normal voltage to 70%. Now the key is if we can go even lower. Yeah, right, you know where I'm going with that question. Let's say it's 50%. The voltage sag brings us to 50%. Are we gonna have the same problem? And it's better to answer in a more direct manner. If we're gonna have the same problem, I just want the public and the council to be aware. But obviously, you could have a voltage sag that goes below 60%, right? You could have a voltage sag that's below what we could handle. It could go out completely.

And then we would have to adjust the system and turn on, reset the chargers, the changers, or we should have went ahead and changed to the turbines. So yes, and that's what I was trying to say earlier. There could be a situation where the voltage sag is below what I'm able to push the manufacturing engineers to lower our setting to. Now we're still in the discovery stage of seeing how low can we take it. We went from 80 to 70, and the last one was at 72. I wanna see us at least go from that down to 40. That would at least catch what happened on May 20th. I don't have guarantees yet that that can be done. But you're absolutely right, and I wanna be honest, that you could have a situation, if you rely on the voltage changers, that you would, static changers, you would have a situation where the millisecond would make it jump and turn it off. Because you can't tell, based on the strength of a storm in the Gulf, whether or not there's gonna be a voltage sag. The voltage, unless you tell me, as straightforward as you can, because I think the public wants to know, what would that do? What would your ability to measure the strength of a storm do relative to preparation for a voltage sag? Only this, to the extent that we know that there is an extreme storm coming, we already know, because of the lags, that the static frequency changers could become questionable at certain levels. So I'm being very clear. So if we know that there is gonna be a large storm, it may be best for us to turn on the turbines at the beginning, and go, as I said, ice island mode, and make our own energy to avoid that question mark. But you're right, and I wanna be honest to the public, that if it goes below a certain amount, and right now we're in this stage where we're working with energy, trying to reset it, but if it goes below what we're able to reset it to, then you're right, we could have a situation where that millisecond would make it jump. But I do want my general superintendent to add a few issues. Yeah, I just wanna highlight the multiple levels of operation that we're speaking to. And do me a favor, speak to the public when you're doing that. Absolutely. Not to Erin, who is an expert in this area, to the public, the person who needs to know the next time a storm is in the Gulf, that there could be outage related to a millisecond, based on a voltage sag. Our intent, and always has been, for the larger storms to be able to use our backup power instead of the transmission grid, to avoid any potential issue that could happen. So that to avoid... You sound like an elected official there. At the end of the day, you didn't answer the question for the public. Maybe there is no answer, so tell me then if the storm is severe and you recognize it as such, when do you make a determination as to whether or not the change is going to be made? Sure. We would make that far in advance. But how, come on, how can you? If a storm pops up like Arthur, are you saying that you can do it within a matter of hours or is it days? No, this is something we can do within a matter of hours. That's fine. Within a matter of hours you can respond. The public wants to know this. It involves evacuation, it involves elderly complexes, it involves neighborhoods that are maybe prone to flooding versus some others. So at the end of the day you can make a decision within a couple of hours whether or not the turbines have to be employed based on the strength of the storm. Yes. So that begs the question of, this was not very complex, I just got that answer, why were we not prepared this time? And so going into Hurricane Arthur, we only had one of the two backup turbines available and so now turbine seven, which is the new turbine, is available to us and so that puts us in a much better position. But you can still make a decision even on that one turbine in advance based on the strength of the storm. Yeah, and it was, we considered that and given the backup power that would not be able to power all of the pumps if we needed, we still felt the frequency changers were the best option. What surprised you about this incident in terms of the millisecond of outage based on a voltage, you know, the issue? What surprised you? What did our engineers, what did the analysts not anticipate might have happened that happened? Well I think what, there was a number of tornadoes as well, right? So there was, this ended up being a much stronger storm than I think was anticipated. We primarily anticipated this being a rain event and not as severe as it ultimately was. I don't care so much as the fault, to be very honest with you. That's an issue that will all work out and I'm sure it will come back before the committee. What I'm always concerned about is the people who are most affected and what information can be shared with them to prepare them for what the possibilities are. So at the end of the day, we've heard that the strength of a storm, which should be almost any storm that the National Weather Service says has the possibilities of being a tropical storm, but the strength of a storm allows us to give analysis in advance to at least be prepared to switch to turbines if necessary. That's correct. So the public should not feel and the council should not feel and, you know, I look toward my left, especially to Commissioner McArron, because at one time Commissioner DeRusso who had a very strong role in this process, we should not feel that the problems relative to flooding and power that facilitates remediation of flooding have been solved by the building of this power plant. There are still technical matters that need to be addressed. Yes, there are still technical matters.

As I said, the lag or the sag could go below where we're able to make the adjustment and so, again, we're going to work with this third party, see where the issues are and talk to the manufacturer and see how low we can take it down and then if we see and believe that there's a heavier storm than expected, then we'll go to the turbines, again, go to island mode and be more independent in making our own electricity. What time frame is involved with the analysis of the sag, the ability to withstand a sag? Well, I think that's part of the third party evaluation that we're working through is to understand more. I know. I know. You're talking about a month. Tell me the time. Thank you. I just need the straightforward answers. I want you to not be answering me, but to answer the elderly person who's living in Lakeview right now, who's living in a community such as in the Ninth Ward who wants to know. They're not going to ask these questions in a technical manner, but I think it's fair to say what kind of time frame are we looking at? Do we anticipate that there will ever be a time where we can get to a level of zero and be able to cover things? Not really, I guess. I think as we do this discussion and conversation with the third party, we'll find out. I don't know today how low we can take down the setting. That's the honest response. But in a month, I'd like to be able to ask you at a committee meeting what the third party has said in terms of what time frame we're looking at. Can we commit to you answering that? Thought is important, but results and resolution, especially in the middle of the storm season, are important. Can the public be assured that within a month or so that we'll have an answer as to whether or not a sag of a certain, even down to zero, can be covered? Yes. We should have that information in a month because the analysis is going on at this point and we should have that information in a month. Be assured, I'm going to ask that as a question. So you might as well start that off as a presentation, you know, in your presentation. And I'm sure that our fellow council members agree with me that that's an important question to be able to answer. A millisecond for a sag resulting in the problems that we saw is something that's not acceptable and it's something that needs to be addressed right away. Yes, sir. Thank you. Council Member Hughes and then Council Member Willer. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to be brief and thank you, Mr. Vice President, for letting me jump the line. In the interest of transparency, I know we keep talking about this voltage drop on June 18th. Yes or no, there was another voltage drop on May 20th. Is that accurate? Yes, sir. Yes. Okay. Well, were they different? They were different in the magnitude of the voltage drop. So why didn't we engage the third party review after the first one, number one? And number two, why were we not transparent with the public that that even happened? Because me and my colleagues and everybody found that out by accident. You all were most certainly not forthcoming about it. Certainly, it was not our intent to not be transparent. There was really very minimal impact to our operations that day. I would say that on the 18th, we were very forthcoming. As soon as we knew that the situation was happening, we were very forthcoming in terms of notifying, you know, some city council, mayor, and yourselves regarding the impacts regarding that. So it's certainly not an intent to be non-transparent. Your feedback is well taken regarding the type of information that you are looking for and we're taking that and we'll be incorporating that into our communication program. But why didn't you engage the third party reviewer on May 20th? Why did you wait to June? Well, I would say this, it was presented to me that it was an anomaly and that the situation had more or less been resolved. And so we took it that way. When it happened again on the June 18th, at that point, we realized that we were at 80. We were not able to go down to 72 where it was. And so now it's time for us to adjust it and go as low as we can to protect the community. All right. And just my last question, the May 20th, you blamed Entergy for that one, correct? It was the same condition that caused the voltage tag that our equipment tripped offline. Let me just read something for the record. And this came from you, Madam General Superintendent. There was a similar situation on May 20th. When we realized that the voltage drop was from Entergy's side and not an issue with our new equipment, we were in touch with them and they confirmed that there was an issue with a nearby transmission line that impacted our substation. We were not given any indication at the time that we should be considering changes to our settings based on the allowable tolerances of the transmission system and such. I was under the impression that this was an isolated incident. As part of the overall operational paradigm for the new power complex, it has always been our intent to rely on our own backup power generation in the event of a hurricane. However, we will be adjusting that approach as we learn more about the environmental conditions that can impact the transmission system. We are working with Entergy now to schedule a meeting. So you stand behind that response. It was Entergy's fault, in your opinion, right? I'm not here to put blame on Entergy regarding the situation. I'm not here to blame anybody. What I am here to do is give the public the – we're just dancing around stuff, right? And this whole – look, I'm not here to play the blame game, but I'm not a lawyer. And I get the lawyers want to dance around everything. I'm just a little, you know, McDonough 35 graduate. I'm just a little urban planner. But what I am committed to doing is giving the public accurate answers.

So you stand behind what was said in that correspondence, right? When we realized that it was a voltage issue from the transmission line that our equipment responded to, that was a new situation to us. And again, in retrospect, I think this is an opportunity for both to come together. But I do want to add this, though. It's easy to point fingers. And I know you're not, but I'm just saying in this discussion – No, I'm not. Is it one or the other? The thing is, it takes two. We have to have the power, and our equipment has to work. And so if the power blips, but our equipment can catch it – you know, let's say the lowest they'll ever blip or have a sag is 40 percent, but we can set our equipment so it catches 20, then no harm, no foul. So it's a matter of how can we work together to find out where that weakness is and where can it work. So that's what we're trying to do. I hear you. But let me just be quite clear with you, Mr. Executive Director. Me and now-Councilman Willard were in the legislature when we fought tirelessly for capital outlay money. And we were assured that if we delivered this capital outlay money, we were going to have consistent, reliable power. And now here we are, and it's difficult to get answers. And I'm going to just be honest with you. You know, these storms can develop and strengthen in a day, right? So we could have a storm by Sunday. And if it stalls over this city, I'm going to just be honest, I'm terrified right now. Because I don't have the faith and confidence, and you all – see, this is where else I struggle with you all. You can never give us a finite date for anything. It's always, well, we anticipate in the coming weeks, but we want specificity. I'm going to just remind Sewage and Water Board, August 1st is coming. And it's going to be a new day in a new way. And we're not going to tolerate excuses on August 1st. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Willard. All right. All right. What was the first date that the power – station came online? Operations, when did it start running? The substation was available, I can't remember in which, it would have been September of 2005? It's been more than a year. Our substation was done and I think the sewage and water board was waiting on it. I'm sorry, I'm going to get it wrong. Tony, do you have the answer? Do you know when it was complete, the substation? He needs to come to the mic. I'm trying to figure out. I'm trying to get the right date. The substation was complete and then the sewage and water board was waiting on their. That's what I'm trying to figure out. What was the date that the substation was providing power for sewage and water board operations? We started testing the frequency changers in September of 2025. Started testing, but when was it turned on? The substation was available. September of 2025? Right, and then we have three different, we have three frequency changer units, each had to be tested individually and in September of 2025 we started the first testing of the first unit. So what was going on during the testing of the first to the second to the third? Everything was, sewage and water board operations were being powered by the substation while you were doing this testing? It was a combination. We were primarily using our older equipment though. Okay, so when did the new substation become the primary source of power? The beginning of this year. So that's what I was trying to find out. Beginning of this year, January, February? I will have to go back and look at the exact date that we were using, but I believe it was in January that it was our primary source. I will confirm. So primary source in January. I know that equipment before it enters a manufacturing facility or plant has to go through factory acceptance testing. Did the new substation go through all of that? Our equipment certainly would have. I'm not sure I can speak to the substation. We would go through a full commissioning of our substation once it's built to make sure our equipment will assimilate different scenarios and make sure that the equipment responds accordingly. Okay. How did conversations about voltage sag come into play during the construction, the design of the power plant? Was there ever a conversation about that? I was not part of the construction of the substation, but those are normal conversations. I would assume they would be normal conversations. Inputs that you would have in a design of a system. Speaking to the mic. I'm sorry. I believe, I would ask the Sewage and Water Board what conversations they had if you were involved in that project management. I don't know. I was not involved in that. I'm just asking like, were there conversations about, hey, if the voltage drops below a certain threshold, the system will be tripped and go offline. The threshold for that to occur is at this. Was that factored in? Was that calculated in to the design, to the equipment, to the components selected for the substation? In terms of those conversations that happened with energy, I do not recall that ever being brought up during this conceptual planning. We had a lot of conversations about the design of the substation and the initial settings for the equipment were set to trip at a level that is even below kind of a normal operating range of plus or minus 10%. There was some contingency built in there, but as we're learning, that needs to be adjusted. When we talk about the voltage sag, the two different incidents, what's the main piece of equipment that is affected once the sag goes too low? The frequency changer itself, which again, I have a photo of here. The frequency changer goes offline? Yes, to protect itself. Did we purchase, install the wrong frequency changers for this project? No. We were able to work with the manufacturer and they can certainly go lower than 80. Again, we've already made those adjustments and we believe it can go lower.

We just need to make sure that there's no downstream impacts that would be seen about that. That was my next question. What happens when you allow it to go lower? Again, we have to, working through a third party, working through with our manufacturer to make sure that there is no damage. We don't want to set a setting that's too low that could damage our equipment, either the frequency changer itself or any pumps or anything else in the system. That's part of what we're working through right now. None of this was discussed or factored in during design, construction, implementation, testing? The 80% was set lower than the normal operating range. Is that like industry standard, 80%? I think that's a manufacturer standard. Manufacturer for the frequency changer? For a project of this scale, is there an industry standard of the voltage that should be accommodated? The manufacturer standard could be 80% on this frequency changer, but if you bought another one, it could have accommodated the different voltage thresholds. I'm just trying to make sure that we didn't purchase the wrong frequency changers. I understand. Those conversations we're having with them now are very positive. I think we're going to have a good outcome out of this at the end of the day. I completely understand the concern and the questions, and we're going to be able to make our adjustments based on the conversations we've been having with them. I do not believe, and I haven't seen anything that makes me believe that we have the wrong frequency changers. I do believe that we have to make the adjustments that we're making now, and that's where third-party evaluation is going to assist us. We're able to go from 80 to 70. Hopefully, we can go down lower. Any idea of how many incidents we have where maybe voltage sag goes below 70? I mean, I know the May incident brought it down to around 40. So we don't have around voltage sag. It's common on the transmission grid to have disturbances, sags all the time. Not every sag causes interruptions or causes issues to customers. When we are notified, hey, did you have something go on our system? We investigate and provide the necessary information. The transmission grid is very different than a distribution grid. The transmission grid doesn't know boundaries between operating companies. It's connected across the whole country, North America there. So if you have a very sensitive system, your cone of risk is broad. If you allow for some fluctuation and some recovery time, you know, you won't see the impact as things that would be right on top of you. So those are the things that the third party will be working through to see how can they less sensitize this system to ride through disturbances on the grid. I guess I would say you need to provide us this information in as near real time as possible. Are you concerned at all that another major rain event could cause the substation to go offline again? Well, again, that's why we will use our backup generation if we feel that that's... Both of the turbines are working? Yes. Okay. I won't belabor the point when the system went offline in May, we should have known about it. That is not how we need to conduct business. We expect transparency. And the only way we can help is if we know what's going on. In the future we will bring that information. We weren't trying to hide anything. It was determined it wasn't impactful. But hindsight is 20-20. We will make sure going forward that we present that information to the council. What I don't want to happen is something else, say we have another storm, something else occurs and we found out after the fact and then you say moving forward, we'll let you know when this occurs. Like this is 100 percent transparency as far as I'm concerned. When you discover a problem that's going to impact service to the people of New Orleans, we need to know about it. Don't try to hide the ball. Thank you all for being here. Thank you Council Member Wheeler. Council Member King followed by Council President Morrell. I was just going to add, I mean obviously I'm just about to take another meeting, but we're all aware of what happens on August 1st, right? On August 1st the legislation that was passed by the legislature that gives the council the ability to regulate the sewage and water board is the law and becomes active on August 1st. So I guess the takeaway from today is whereas previously the sharing of information has been conditional and voluntary, it is highly unlikely that post-August 1st any of this information will be a question of whether you think it's important or not. As you saw from energy, we have had to negotiate down to the point, we're trying to get information when 100 people or more are affected by a power outage. I know that Mr. Hughes is in back, but when you look at what happened this weekend with those apartments and that water being cut off, the fact that that was an utter situation of chaos for a council member, part of what the legislature granted us this past session is that we never had authority over sewage or water board, yet we received 100% of the complaints regarding it. This entire relationship has to change and it will change on August 1st. I mean as you know from the pumps meetings, I know you all are a part of pumps as well, there's going to be a significant amount of water being cut off.

Significance see change on August 1st, and it will no longer be We don't like the way things are going and so we have to wait Nine months to go the legislation to change it if we don't like the way things are going or the way sewage or waterboard is operating We will change it in real time how you interpret what I just said is up to you, but I know how the public's gonna interpret it because Being given that authority being given that level of oversight the expectation the public is going to have on the council is That when we say something for example like I started this meeting with and I'm sure y'all so talking about it I came back in when we have a simple question like Who's responsible for X? I? Shouldn't have to walk back in a meeting as I still be talking about who was responsible. I know that in politics right now There is this idea never take accountability just deny deny deny and I am very frustrated that seems to be and I know customer uses rejoined us It seems that that's Pervasive throughout government like I think you would be surprised if you told the public Yeah, this is a new power plant. We didn't have the equipment calibrated correctly We have now solved that problem going forward this was a mistake that was our responsibility It's easier for the public in this council to stomach that Then to constantly have this back-and-forth between groups saying well It was our fault, but it's also their fault, and it's like when neither group will kind of Fully accept who's responsible Then not only the public think you're both responsible that you're both, but also thinks you're both avoiding responsibility And so when we ask a direct question We not only expect a direct answer it's also the easiest path out of the problem So like I said August 1st Can't come soon enough Come some are working If I could switch for a moment before we go to Item number six get an update on on Decatur Street and a French Quarter the French Quarter Street construction there's been a lot of Information about the streets construction that I want to really Get some clarity on for myself my colleagues and also more importantly French quarter businesses and residents so my first question is When was this project scheduled to originally start? Could I ask Steven Yang to join us as well none of this is So in terms of the I Think energy, I think if we're done with the Power station stuff energy you guys can can get up from the table and Steve Steven can join us over here for the rest of these Thank you You Morning council afternoon All right, you must stop sorry, I'm Steven Yang deputy general superintendent for a surgeon water board Thank You mr. Can you tell us when was this project scheduled to originally start the project was originally scheduled to start back in March in? 2025 In March of 2025 that's correct, okay, so why didn't it start well? We had two events with the mark we had Mardi Gras and we had the Super Bowl events And so we thought it would be best to start after that So when did the project? Start so the project actually started back in April of 2025 and it was delayed due to high waters in the Mississippi River And so we were not allowed to start work until that water level went down all right, so when you said it started in 2025 In April what was done? Oh, sorry August it started August 2025. Yes, sir, and you couldn't start Earlier because of the water that's correct, okay? All right The process of opening multiple streets at one time that that's been a concern a lot of people say you should have done one street at a time why While it was a decision made to open multiple streets at a time so originally in our contract We were scheduled to start one block at a time and finish one block at a time But due to our funding constraints we actually thought it would be best with the in in coordination with our general superintendent at the time thought it was best to Start the project all at once And again this was due to funding constraints on our end with with the federal money that was coming in Can you go into a bit more detail about the funding constraints? I think that's confusing to a lot of people. Yes, so back in 2025 we were still looking for an extension through FEMA and At the time we were a bit worried that that extension would not be granted And so in order to get as much work done and put into the ground We were we asked the contractor to actually work on all the blocks at the same time Or as many blocks as he possibly could at the same time and that was to have the ability to have FEMA Reimbursed sewage and water for the project that's correct everything that was in the ground that can be built could have been reimbursed at that time so why Was the why did you? Reimbursed What was the cost for the project when was the money first available for the project Roughly ten million dollars, so when when was it when was it was available back when we first kind of started the FEMA program? In 2012, but as y'all know we reached a settlement back, and I believe 2016 2017 All right So you have to that's want to give people understand that it was a rush to open as many streets as possible So FEMA Korea and first sewage and water boy, but that's correct project Original slated back in 2012 yeah, so you asked about why we started so late You know in regards to having the money versus now We in the meantime between 2016 and when we started this project We actually had other projects that are going on at the same time We had or in correlation we had the clay born projects right with a tm3 tm4 we had a tm The st.

Bernard project we also had Leonidas fig Eden and Dupree they were all transmission main projects and so In order to do those projects we try not to put too many of those transmission means down at the same time because that causes Us a high risk right it's a high risk, but not very much not a high reward right you If we were to get a main break while doing these lines you would have a bull water virus of the whole city and not just sections so there have been a couple delays that has a Couple things that has delayed this project one. Well. Can you explain the delays? yeah, so the first delay like I said was the The Mardi Gras event and the Super Bowl then we had the high water event That we couldn't dig and do any excavation We also had some archaeological findings that that caused delayed that was a roughly a month worth of delays where? The state actually came in with the archaeologists and had to do some digging in the site And we were not allowed to do anything in the area until they were finished finding Making their findings and then providing us the results so once you started in August That's what that's concerns are more concerned about Started in August yes, when did the archaeology arc? Those delays when was it the archaeology delay start those are fairly recent I believe that was earlier this year we had two of them though We had one on st.. Peter, and I think the other was on the 1100 block at Decatur And then I also want to make sure that it's very clear that you know There's other utilities working in this area as well You know right now like right at the 1200 block at Decatur, that's Delta that's doing repairs for their system as well So you know we really looked into how to give the the residents a holistic project You know trying to get the sewer the water to drainage and then other utilities done at the same time And I know it's it's inconveniencing the residents and the business owners But you know we want to make sure we're not coming back to this spot twice and Before we move on with the delays. Do you know what was found or so how long was those? About a month for archaeological findings, and what was found anything significant nothing significant, but I could tell you we have pictures of Personnel on the ground literally with a little duster like dusting off pieces of You know just like burnt clay and things of that nature, but originally did what they did find Was an archaeological finding that was significant, but past that they didn't find anything else, okay, so now we're current 2026 there are no delays River doesn't the tide of the river doesn't matter the height of the river doesn't matter What is the expected timeline to finish this project? Currently the timeline is mid to late September, okay? And it was always stated that this would be about a year's work. That's correct So if you were to start it from the time that we started in August 365 days would have been in August but with the additional delays of the archaeological findings We it's pushed back about a month, okay, and we've talked about What can be done to possibly speed up this project maybe have more people or more crews work or have them work longer hours? What is the feasibility of that? It could be feasible But I think we have to take into account a few things that you know the contractor is not set to do that type of Work, so we have to confirm that he has the forces to do it the funding is a big Aspect to this as well right this is working outside of the normal hours and so additional funding would be necessary and where that funding would come from is a Question mark because FEMA would not reimburse for expediting a project right once the days are set That's that's what we can do the project timeline for and how much is the funding what's that? How much would it cost per day to? I don't know the exact numbers, but it's it's it's generally roughly anywhere between five to ten thousand dollars a day But I can get those numbers for you counselor. All right, so I just want to know I'm I'm good And I'm almost done councilmember McCarran. Thank you for let me Switch to the top a little bit We have roughly with red beginning July this week We have all July All of August and a week or two in September Mm-hmm. That's about ten or so weeks a month and a half roughly. Yeah all right, I just want to make it very clear to the those affected that the reasons of the Street construction the reasons behind the delay and the most recent timeline would have what's done in about ten weeks ten to twelve weeks That's right All right. Thank you. That's all that Thank You councilmember King I had one comment card from Morgan Clevenger on item number five and then we can move on to the presentation about New Orleans East water issue Thank you 300 million dollars, you know, we spent years in this council chamber on The substation on turbines 20 years. I'm really sorry energy is left because the residents of this city have paid over and over and over for these processes and these This technology to work we had faith you told us have faith and we did we no longer have faith I'm angry right now because I'm hearing about lessons learned. We're watching storms You know as a resident You're watching that storm too And all you can think about is we don't have any protection and we paid for it over and over and over again It's not enough to say Lessons learned it's not enough to say we'll figure it out next month Voltage sag our roofs are sagging. Our foundations are sagging. Our ceilings are caving in We cannot afford this any longer We have so many homeowners and so many buildings in this city that have never recovered from the last major hurricane Everybody's vulnerable 300 million dollars It's not acceptable at all And I have to go back and tell my residents and my neighbors that there's nothing that we can do to help them So I urge you all to be accountable I'm tired of hearing.

Well, it's this one's fault in this ass one that one's fault. We can't afford it any longer and I urge this council Please recognize the seriousness of Tropical Storm Arthur We're 12 days out and we have citizens that are suffering terribly Because the vulnerabilities of the last five years have made them more vulnerable. So fix this. Thank you Thank You Morgan. Okay, Susan water board. You can move on to the Chateau Carmel It comes I was just a note the online comment received on item number five will be Remitted and preserved in the minutes. Great. Thank you So so madam chair, if you don't mind, I know this is specific to district II What we'll do is we can forego the presentation. I think we've heard enough presentations I'll just ask two questions if you don't mind and then we can you know, move on sewage and water board for the record That that should be Carmel it's Lake Carmel not Lake Caramel and a Chateau Carmel not Chateau Carmel, so Let me move on to the water main break that happened adjacent to this apartment complex Do we have a specific date for the permanent repair? Because what sewage and water board did this weekend and let me Publicly thank you director for being on site. Let me thank the hard-working network crew Who deployed at 3 a.m. And was in the hot Sun for a long time. I really appreciate them When is the permanent repair going to take place specific date? So what I want to know specific date for the permanent repair How long will the permanent repair take right and then you know We we have to do a much better proactive job of informing the residents that they're going to be without water While this repair takes place. So walk me through that. So first off when you talk about notifications We will ensure that the residents that were impacted the first time around if they're all going to be impacted again will be notified right secondly in terms of time frame to Get the repair completed the repair would take a day if less than a day In terms of the repair itself and when we can get it done I still have to talk to my team to get the parts in as I told you when we were in the field This was a a bit of an oddball repair because it goes over the canal and so we need specific parts for that We were unable to secure those parts at the time So we capped the line and made a temporary repair, but I I will get you a date on the repair for that But at the minimum we have to notify the residents at least three to five days before we make their repair So it won't happen until then. Yeah, and I that's my point, right? I'd love to give them like a seven-day notice I will if you want to have the news and I'm gonna partner with you all To ensure that they're notified because these door hangers in the past You all claim they happen, but the residents tell me all the time. There wasn't anything on their door So I'm gonna join you all my team is gonna join you all on the ground and we're gonna go door-to-door together To make sure that the residents are properly notified. Okay. Yes, sir Let me now shift. I'm very aggravated today because in the 1100 block of Winchester in Lake Forest Estates The ground just completely collapsed It's my understanding. This is due to a subsurface drainage issue that you all were well aware of for roughly a year Okay, now the street has collapsed a Residents car has gotten stuck, you know council president brought this up earlier today I don't know why for the life of me We wait for something to collapse and now we have to do an emergency repair Which is probably more expensive if we just would have been proactive So tell me and my team has been flagging this since we assumed office in January, which this issue predated me What why didn't we repair it and and and and what's the plan to get So from from our records we were made aware of this in April of this year It is a drainage issue, but what we're also doing is This for the you all were made aware of this for the first time in April. That's what you're telling me from our records Yes, okay Well, I'm gonna go get you the paper trail to help refresh your memory to remind you all that You were notified prior to April. Yes, but just to make sure you pull those receipts understood But at that time we we we did barricade it off because we knew it wasn't an issue But when we found it was drainage We looked at it and we noticed that it was more severe than that and we do have a sewer line that runs directly on that it's actually serviced by a sewer force now Sorry by the sewer station a sewer lift station and so we want to make sure that that sewer is not damaged that well So I've instructed my team this week to go get that CCTV ASAP In order to ensure that we're not just fixing a drain line and then coming back to fix the sewer line right afterwards So I guess if the street didn't collapse today We'd still have your little orange cone in the middle of the street And we just get to it when we get to it was that the plan sir that the street had been that way Since we'd known about it in April and so we've put cones out yesterday yesterday like that long before April for the record Yeah, but like I said, I was only made aware of it in April And so like I said, my team was out there to put the cones out and let yesterday We don't know when the cones were removed what they were And so you had a vehicle drive into that into that hole. So the residents car that was damaged Are you all gonna assume liability for that that I can't speak on mr. Director. Mr. Madam General superintendent What we will do that. It'll go to our risk management process I don't give the standard response that you all bear no liability. We've seen this. Oh, no.

No, that's not what I'm saying It would be improper for me and I'm professional for me to state when I don't have the facts Yeah, I can only go by the consistent response that the residents always get from sewage and water board My question today is when will this be repaired? As soon as I have the information in terms of if the sewer line is damaged If it is not damaged and we can fix the drain line will do so immediately immediately like today. No, sir Tomorrow. No, sir. How do you define immediately as soon as I have that information for a sewer? There'll be a week two weeks a month three months potentially a week to two to me at my direction This is going to be a top priority as soon as they know they have an understanding what the situation is and they have The equipment that they need this is a top priority for us to repair it at my direction if this is not repaired Expeditiously. Yes, my definition of immediate is like let's start today My response is not going to be very pleasant Okay, and I will compel you all to show up to this council on a weekly basis if I have to Okay, until this is fixed. So I don't want to come back a week from now and this is still an issue That's unacceptable Okay Any of you going on the ground today to look at this? Yeah, I was actually gonna go right after this meeting, sir Okay, great. Thank you. Madam chair Thank you members. There's no other questions You have a question Okay, I will motion to adjourn the executive water board, all right, we are adjourned I wanted a second. You're gonna stay. Yes. I don't want to You You