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State Assembly members, distrustful of the Public Service Commission probe of the Queens blackout, have put together their own team to investigate the failure.
The task force, announced yesterday by Assemblyman Michael Gianaris (D-Queens), will include experts, former state officials and academics. It will produce an independent report before the end of the year, the lawmakers promised.
"The issue is how do we change policy in the state so it doesn't happen again," said Gianaris, who lost power in his own Astoria apartment. "We're taking a big look at the entire power delivery system, and we are going to come out with some serious recommendations."
Parts of northwestern Queens - including Astoria, Long Island City, Sunnyside and Woodside - are still reeling from the July power outage that left some residents and businesses without electricity for more than a week.
Gianaris and other local legislators have slammed Con Edison for underestimating the number of people who lost power in the first days of the blackout, which started on July 17.
Businesses said they lost thousands of dollars worth of goods because they were told their power would be restored shortly.
There already has been one City Council hearing and one Assembly hearing on the blackout in which legislators had a chance to grill Con Edison and Public Service Commission officials. The City Council is set to have another hearing next week.
Even though the Public Service Commission has said it is conducting its own investigation, Gianaris and others aren't convinced that will bring needed changes.
"I don't trust Con Ed's internal report, and I don't put a lot of faith in the Public Service Commission's report," said Gianaris. "We thought we needed to do something ourselves."
The task force members include Karen Burstein, former commissioner of the Public Service Commission; Rae Zimmerman, director of the Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems and an NYU professor of planning and public administration; Frank Murray, former commissioner of the New York State Energy Office; Gerald Norlander, executive director of the Public Utility Law Project; Fred Zalcman, executive director of the Pace Energy Project as well as Assembly members Catherine Nolan (D-Queens), Margaret Markey (D-Queens) and Gianaris
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