Staff writer
Everyone is tired of the numerous electrical outages in Marion that seem to occur on a monthly basis or more often.
Now officials are pointing fingers at each other with customers hoping a resolution is in sight.
The most recent outage was July 22, when the electricity went off at about 3:15 p.m., flickering and grinding equipment and appliances. It came back on 90 minutes later only to go back off again, repeating the scenario another time.
Finally, more than four hours later, the lights and air conditioning came on and stayed on, capping another frustrating and warm day for residents and businesses.
At Monday’s Marion City Council meeting, administrator David Mayfield told the council that the he had contacted the city’s engineers who were to contact the engineers at Westar Energy to look at both distribution systems to figure out “what’s going on at the Florence junction.”
“The last time (July 22) it was a static wire which they think may have caused the outage,” Mayfield said. “If these issues aren’t resolved, I want someone from Westar to come to the city council.”
He continued that he didn’t think it was anything on the city’s side.
When Westar Energy was contacted for comment, Carla Olson said a circuit went out.
“Marion had installed new equipment which didn’t ‘talk’ to our equipment,” she said. “It’s a fault on the city system.”
Olson further explained that the cause of the outage interrupted the power on the city’s system which came back on Westar’s equipment and knocked out more than 240 Westar customers.
Further conversation with the Westar representative indicated that the city of Marion is considered as one customer since wholesale electricity is sold to the city.
Westar serves power to a point by Florence with the City of Marion then responsible for lines and electricity that is distributed throughout the city.
During Monday’s meeting, Mayfield told the council that he had asked Westar about backfeeding electricity, as had been done before over power lines between the two cities. Hillsboro receives its electricity from a different circuit. Mayfield said he was told that it would cost the City of Marion between $4 and $5 million for a new switch to be installed to make it possible.
The city has a contract with Westar until 2010.