Council treated like Mushrooms kept in the dark and fed Bullshit
Nelson Hydro installing underwater Fiberoptic Cable
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| Cable ditching Lakeside Park |
He provided one for the solar garden even though there never was a business case! City council
has to depend on their experts recommendations.
Nelson hydro is installing underwater fiberoptic cable to the north shore, reasons given
future growth, sewage lift station monitoring, electric grid security, voltage optimization.
The CAO also states for strategic partners? So why are Nelson hydro customers paying, Nelson
hydro doesn't need on tenth of one strand of the 288 strands bandwidth capability.
The hydro manager's reply to the BCUC when they ask what its for says its for Nelson hydro,
nothing else is mentioned.
I think its to connect to the Columbia Basin Broadband fibre at Balfour, but your Nelson hydro
electric bill is paying. Just like it pays for so many other city items. Its easier to raise electric rates
than taxes. I am happy half the customers live outside the city and help me to pay for this city but
I don't like paying for something worthless.
The contract shows a 288 strand single mode optic fibre underwater cable to the north shore.To help you put that in perspective. One strand bandwidth can support 10GB of data. 2500 people could simultaneously watch a high definition movie on one strand. This leaves 287 strands for what purpose? Estimated Fiber cost $200,000. I have no idea how much the power cables cost.
North shore view from bridge, rolls of cable seen
Council can only make its best decisions from the information provided them by their experts.
Is council confident they received all the information necessary to make the decision
to install this underwater fiber cable?
According to the CAO this was approved by city council. I can't find any public council meeting
information where this was discussed or approved?
How was this done? REASONS FOR NELSON HYDRO INSTALLING THIS CABLE Reason #1 FUTURE GROWTH What future growth? The useful land is fully built out, very little
room for new growth.
The Nelson hydro underwater fibre will serve only the north shore parts of
Regional district Areas E and F. Latest known population census figures. Area 2016 2011 %change # of occupied dwellings E 3772 3781 -0.2% 1736 F 3963 3976 -0.3% 1707 Total potential connections (occupied dwellings) 3443 Not all of the above are on the North shore. The North shore already has Shaw Fiber, cablevision and Telus, likely all internet customers
are taken. Now Telus is spending $20M to bring purefiber to the home. Shaw and Telus suspend their cables under the bridge available for repair. Nelson hydro fiber underwater certainly creates an expensive repair proposition and risk. In the past 6 years NelsonFiber has possibly 50 private customers. They haven't been
competitive in the city why would this change on the north shore?
The Ministry of Education contracts the province schools with their Next Gen fibre, now
that Telus is coming here won't the schools join the rest of the province on the Telus NextGen
fiber system? Reason # 2 To monitor the sewage lift station Installed on the north shore in 1992. This is a city sewer
responsibility. NOT hydro! It didn't need fiber
since 1992, why now? I see a telephone line and a
SCADA antenna on the building.
This is a feeder line to the city main sewer line, will the
main sewer pumping station also need fiber? Reason # 3 For hydro grid reliability and security The suggestion appears to be monitoring, as far as I know the only Nelson hydro monitoring
on the north shore is a substation 17 km out, its using a satellite dish, it doesn't need fiber.
Fortis use a satellite dish at their sub south of the city. What security issues exist with the present
systems that fiber will solve? How could existing systems upgrade to the same security level?
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| Fortis sub station south of town uses a satellite dish |
Where could one find more reliability than the north shore which has the option of
Fortis backfeeding power which is now being done while the new submarine cables
are being installed.
Reason # 4 Voltage Optimization in its simplest form the electrical equivalent of the water pressure reducing valve in your
house, it needs no monitoring.in its most sophisticated form, from my investigation, a cellphone service could provide the necessary connection, no need for a high speed fibre cable. The well liked competent engineer that was working on this project left Nelson hydro, who will be doing this now? A couple months earlier another manager left. There is no one left in Nelson hydro other than the general manager. Could it be to join the CBBC (Columbia Basin Broadband Corp.) fiber at Balfour? The only logical reason. Why would Nelson hydro pay for this crossing? Just how much has Nelson hydro spent on the cities NelsonFiber utility? Nelson Fibre had its beginnings around 2014 when Nelson hydro buried its power lines
in the Baker Street alley and included conduit to run fibre. Was this paid for with NH funds?
A newspaper item statement when RDCK hooked up to fiber, "with the help of Nelson hydro".
Recent $90,000 over budget for the NelsonFiber COLO came from the Water Licence Reserve fund
a line item under Nelson Hydro.
Nelson hydro linemen have done work for Nelsonfiber can that be found under a separate
budget item?
One public budget presentation slide show image shows a Nelson hydro lineman sent
for fibre optic training. I removed all the employees named.
Does Nelson hydro do all the SCADA (supervisory control and data acquistion) monitoring for
city sewer, water and other utilities? The only line item in the city budget I can see for SCADA
comes under the Nelson hydro budget.
Nelson hydro claims two full time IT city persons. The recent public video presentation
by the manager of Nelson fiber claims two full time IT persons. The city only has 4 full time IT persons, that leaves 0 IT persons to do the cities IT work. And last years Nelson hydro submission claimed 12.5% of the IT manager $97,000/yr. Was city council being given all the information when they apparently OK'd it according to the CAO? Were any alternatives costed for what Hydro claims this fiber if for? Putting the fiber underwater is pretty risky. If it were on the bridge like Telus and Shaw
communications, repair would be easy. Also anything compromising the submarine
cable power lines might involve the fiber, if it were on the bridge, it would still
monitor the north shore grid, that likely would be Fortis backfeeding power. I don't think city council has the knowledge to ask the questions and must rely on their experts who bring their recommendations forward. The hydro manager also brought city council a business case for the community solar garden.
It was supposed to pay back in 10 or 15 years. Even the consulting engineer couldn't make
a 25 year payback possible.
Norm Yanke
Nelson BC
Update apr. 6, 2019 Fiber roll on the barge ready for underwater instal
My opinion, Nelson hydro customers paid for something that they don't need. This was done to get across the lake to join up with the Columbia Broadband fibreoptic network.288 strands of fiberoptic for Nelson hydro? Bull1!@#$. One strand could feed all of Nelson live streaming on line internet video simultaneously. This cable would serve a city. The CAO Cormack allowed it was for Nelson hydro, sewer lift station monitoring(done successfully for 20 years now it needs fibre?) and STRATEGIC PARTNERS!!!!!!.
The Nelson hydro manager in a request from the BCUC rate application asked about the fibre optic crossing, he replied to the BCUC it was for Nelson Hydro purposes.
Of course he also in previous years stated to the BCUC the solar garden was FULLY funded by those opting in. They paid $186,000 you paid the rest of the over $400,000 and will pay full retail for all power (so that is distributed among those who opted in for their warm fuzzy feeling) and you have another 23 years to go on that 25 year contract. Your Nelson hydro bill will also pay for any and all future costs as it paid the $20,000 for security cameras after panels were stolen.
I don't think the CAO and hydro manager know what ethics or the truth is.
City council past and present.......in my experience, of no value to this city when it comes to
managing this city managers. Rubberstampers. IN particular those who live outside the city
whose agenda is climate emergency, plastic and saving the planet, the city isn't on their agenda.
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