For many, the August 14 blackout may be starting to fade, but for us at the BWL, the memory is still painfully fresh. State and national investigations continue into what caused the nation’s worst blackout, which left some 50 million people without power in seven U.S. states and the Canadian Province of Ontario.

BWL officials are cooperating fully with these investigations, while also conducting our own study of how the blackout affected our electrical system, leaving all 98,000 electric customers without power for up to 12 hours. More important, we’re looking at ways to protect our system from something like this occurring again.

So, what really happened? And how was it that problems on the interconnected grid brought down a utility that prides itself on being self-sufficient, with its own locally operated power plants? Final answers probably won’t be known for months, but there’s one prominent theory, and it matches identically with what BWL operators experienced on our system.

This theory holds that the problems on August 14 began in northern Ohio, on a power system owned by First Energy. First a large power plant went out of service; then a series of transmission lines serving the Cleveland area became overloaded, and tripped off-line.

As single incidents, none of these developments was unusual, or particularly threatening. As a group, however, they brewed up the power grid’s version of a perfect storm. Suddenly, northern Ohio found itself isolated from its usual power supply from the south and east, and began pulling power from the grid in Michigan and Ontario.

Power plants within utilities connected to the grid tried to keep up with the demand for more power and the collapsing voltage, and when they couldn’t, they tripped off-line. Within seconds, virtually all of Detroit Edison’s plants, and Consumers Energy plants from Midland to Grand Haven, shut down. And, so did ours.

Operators at the BWL’s operations center had no forewarning of problems on the grid until they affected our system. Their first sign of trouble was at about 4:08 p.m., when voltage levels began swinging wildly, triggering some 340 control room alarms. Two minutes later, the utility’s Erickson and Eckert power plants tripped off-line, and Lansing became part of the worst power blackout in history.

Some of our customers have questioned why the BWL stays connected to the power grid when we have our own local plants. Virtually all utilities are connected to the grid because, in most cases, it serves as a reliable source for backup power if problems force a local plant out of service. Connections to the grid also serve as an outlet for utilities to sell their excess power if they have more than they need at any time for local consumption. Last year, for instance, the BWL sold more than $23 million in electricity to other utilities through the power grid, and revenue from those sales help keep rates down for our customers.

Just as our connection to the power grid brought our system down, it also helped us recover. Within a few hours after the blackout began at 4:10 p.m., BWL operators arranged for access to 10 megawatts of power to begin restarting our generating units. Our first unit came back on-line shortly after 10 p.m. and by 4:30 a.m., service to all our customers was restored. We’re grateful for the patience and support from our customers, and for the splendid actions of our employees to restore electric service to all our customers within 12 hours.

On a national scale, investigators are working to confirm the cause of the blackout, why it wasn’t contained much earlier, and what can be done to prevent the same thing from happening again. The BWL will continue to cooperate with state and national investigations. We’ve also put together an internal task force to carefully examine what happened on August 14. We’ll particularly look at ways we can protect our system from future failures on the power grid, and explore options for getting back on-line even faster in the event of a future blackout. We’ll keep you informed of what we find as our investigation continues.

Good news for our Internet-savvy customers. Now, you can view and pay your BWL bill from the comfort of your computer!

Our new electronic billing option allows you to view your BWL utility bill on-line through the Internet, review your billing history, and authorize payment with the click of a button.

We’ve teamed up with CheckFreeÒ,¨ a leading provider of Internet electronic services, to bring this new option to our customers. You can pay electronically on a monthly basis through your credit card or checking account, or you can authorize automatic payments through your checking account.

It’s all available right here on the BWL Web site. Click here for more detail on how to be connected.

New sewer rates go into effect this month for customers of the City of Lansing’s wastewater treatment system. The new rates were approved last May by Lansing City Council and took effect October 1.

For residential customers, the new rates will increase monthly bills from 0.6 percent to 4.1 percent depending on how much water they use. The average customer using about 4,500 gallons of water a month will see an increase of about a dollar on their monthly bill. For large commercial customers, the rate increase will be about 6 percent.

Drinking water rates set by the BWL are not affected by this change.

For efficiency and convenience to customers, Lansing drinking water and sewer charges appear on the same bill, although sewer rates are set by Lansing City Council and water rates are set by the Board of Water & Light Commissioners.

All women are at risk of developing breast cancer, and that risk increases with age. Early detection is the best protection.

Current recommendations for all women age 20 to 39 include monthly breast self-examinations and a clinical breast exam by a healthcare provider every one to three years. Women age 40 and older should perform monthly self-exams, see their healthcare provider every year for a clinical exam and have an annual mammogram. When detected early, the survival rate for breast cancer is very high.

Encourage the women in your life to get a breast cancer screening. For information about free screening and mammograms for qualified women over age 40, call the Ingham County Health Department at 887-4364.