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National Grid Mulls Bill Increase

People who attended the information session and hearing about the National Grid’s intended rate increase. (c) Stefan Oliva 2017

*Disclaimer: This story was originally published on July 31, 2017. Check for updates.*

By Stefan Oliva SYRACUSE (NCC News) – National Grid might raise their customers’ electricity and gas bills by a total of roughly $18 a month. They requested that the New York State Public Service Commission approve a three year agreement, as opposed to the one year agreement currently in place.

An information session and hearing that was open to the public featured National Grid representatives at Syracuse’s Nottingham High School. The company held the event to inform the public about what they want to do with the estimated $261 million that they will make in revenue, if the NYSPSC agrees to a multi-year proposal.

Several people in attendance brought signs to protest the planned increase. A lot of them also grilled the National Grid representatives with tough questions, especially about the services that would be implemented with the added revenue. “I like to say that there’s something in it for everyone,” said Virginia Limmiatis, a media representative for National Grid. “What does that mean for our customers? It means storm resiliency, reliability…”

Cortland resident, David Gower, questioned the costs to the customers and how they would see that money. His questions were met with widespread applause, the only time the crowd applauded a question.

There will be another hearing and information session tomorrow before the vote. Gower added that the public is better informed and thinks attending informational meetings is a good first step.

He also wants to see clearer lines of communication between National Grid and its customers. “I think [they] should provide a significant amount of tangible information so that we can evaluate what their decision are based on,” Gower said.

Listen to the re-recorded audio story here: (c) Stefan Oliva 2020.
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Opioids: How Chemical Dependency Changed

The opioid crisis had a significant impact on how many admissions there were for chemical dependency treatment in Onondaga County. The numbers cannot be taken at face value because they do not consider the amount of people who were admitted to multiple programs or who were transferred out of state for treatment. The raw data include more than 65 thousand rows of statistics, starting from 2007 going to 2016, so I filtered it by only including inpatient rehabilitation for heroin and other opioids. The ages ranged from under 18 to 55 and older, with people between 18 and 34 being the most affected.

There are six types of general treatment programs and several sub categories. The other rehabilitation programs include crisis, opioid treatment, residential, outpatient and specialized. The main sub categories I looked at were medically supervised withdrawal for inpatients, medically managed detoxification and medically monitored withdrawal, among others. The data show that except for medically managed detoxification, the number of admissions went up significantly starting in 2013, peaking in 2016, which is when the opioid crisis started taking off in the United States and New York.

The numbers also support this trend locally because according to New York’s Health Department (page 67 of the report), outpatient emergency department visits in Onondaga County increased from 307 in 2015 to 482 in 2016, which is roughly 103 people out of every 100,000. The crisis has seen disturbing effects because opioid related deaths tripled in Onondaga County from 2012 to 2016, but went down 28 percent between 2016 and the beginning of last year.