Freeholder Board: JCP&L Failures Are NJBPU’s Responsibility

Hunterdon County’s Freeholders have released a letter sent today to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) calling for accountability equally from both Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L) and the BPU for the utility’s failure to live up to the BPU’s 2018 Order on Reliability and Security, and the state agency’s failure to monitor JCP&L’s performance.

Freeholder Director Shaun Van Doren stated, "Our residents are angry and frustrated. JCP&L’s communications performance, with residents and businesses, and most particularly with county and local emergency response personnel, failed to meet the standards established by the BPU’s July 2018 Order, which was entered in response to the March 2018 windstorm.”

Freeholder Deputy Director Sue Soloway stated, "“It has been eight years since Hurricane Sandy and over two years since the July 2018 BPU Order and in this latest storm Hunterdon County residents have seen very little in reliability or security from JCP&L, and the BPU must own up to its’ responsibility for this failure.” 

Van Doren and Soloway wrote in the letter to BPU President Joseph L. Fiordaliso, ‘The BPU has a responsibility to ensure that the utility improvements that have been ordered, and for which ratepayers are charged, are followed through on. That apparently has not happened. The public demands accountability equally from both JCP&L and the BPU.’

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