WYANDOTTE, Mich. – There’s a Downriver community where people say they’re satisfied with the city providing their power.
During this winter’s ice storm, hundreds of thousands across the region were without power, some for days. But in Wyandotte, power was restored much sooner.
“The longest it’s been out was this last time, and I think it went out at about 8 p.m. and it came back on at 5 in the morning. And that’s the longest it’s been out,” said Rusty Hammond, a Wyandotte Resident.
Everyone Local 4 talked to in Wyandotte was more than satisfied with their electricity provider. Believe it or not -- it’s the city.
“They do really good. They’re quick. They work really hard here. They got a system. They get everybody together,” said Ruth-Ann Fruchey of Wyandotte.
Out of only 40 cities in Michigan, Wyandotte is one of three in the region solely responsible for providing its residents with certain utilities, including cable, water, and electricity. The city serves about 12,000 customers compared to DTE’s 1.2 million.
General Manager of Wyandotte Municipal Services Paul LeManes said because of the size difference. Power employees can use all their resources to focus exclusively on the customers within the city limits.
“One of the benefits that the residents and businesses in Wyandotte have is that it’s locally controlled. So, my bosses, at the end of the day, are the residents of Wyandotte. So, there’s accountability for myself and the staff, literally from the people you see every day in the city,” said LeManes.
Wyandotte has provided its own power since 1894. Electricity is created and distributed locally at the Wyandotte power plant, and runs seven substations.
“Back in the late 1800s, the city of Wyandotte decided to create its own municipal utility and it initially started with water and then a few years later, they added the electric utilities, so it’s been in existence for well over 100 years now,” explained LeManes.
Because it’s worked well over the years, the city said it has no plan to fix what’s nowhere near broken. Many times when most of Detroit and other surrounding suburbs are in the dark, most Wyandotte residents can rest assured knowing they’ll be just fine.
“A lot of the residents have bragging rights when your electricity is up, and your neighbors a couple of miles to the west may not have theirs up yet. I know it’s unfortunate. But there is some local pride in being able to say you’re up and running before other people are,” stated LeManes.
Since they only service Wyandotte, linemen and other crew members are very familiar with the layout, restoring outages is much easier. Another benefit is the way the city was built.
“The terrain is to our advantage here. We’re a smaller city, and the houses are closer together. We don’t have a lot of differences in distances in between houses,” said LeManes.
About 40 miles away in Ann Arbor, some are hoping for a similar operation to make it more of a pleasant experience.
“I was out of power here for nine days. It’s pretty horrifying. It disrupts every aspect of your life, and there’s not a lot you can do about it,” explained Ann Arbor for Public Power President Greg Woodring.
Greg Woodring is the founder and president of Ann Arbor for Public Power. He’s been advocating for the city to fight the battle of taking power back from DTE for fewer outages and cleaner energy.
“Hearing people across Washtenaw county talking about the expenses that they occurred, the disruption to their lives is heartbreaking,” said Woodring.
However, because of how things have been set up for decades, making the switch may not be such an easy task.
“To replicate the Wyandotte Model in another city is extremely difficult. It’ll be extremely difficult to unwind everything that’s been in place for a number of years which is why Wyandotte has the advantage of having put this in place well over 100 years ago,” said LeManes.
If another community wants to adopt the same format, they’d first have to go through a feasibility study.
“I’m fairly confident that part of the result of that feasibility study would be that number one, the legalities to work out in the existing investor-owned utility infrastructure in those various cities will be extremely difficult to go through,” exclaimed LeManes.
Another factor is the cost of uprooting infrastructure that’s been in place for over a century. Regardless of the obstacles, Woodring said he’d continue to advocate for it against the odds.
“We don’t have any choice but to fight it on this ground,” said Woodring.
Either way, the Wyandotte residents we spoke to wouldn’t change a thing.
“There are a lot of people out there that were without power for a long time and I really feel for them,” stated Fruchey.
As of Feb. 30.1% of the power generated in Wyandotte is through renewable resources.
As for handling power outages, at recent hearings in Lansing, power companies DTE and Consumers Energy said one of the things they can and need to do is automate the power grid, making it possible for technology to re-direct power around outages and shortening the outage durations.
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