(Just when we were feeling better, more schizophrenia. Bloomberg is a heavy media hitter. Ack.)

Utilities Say They're Y2K Ready, Though Blackouts Expected Washington, June 30 (Bloomberg) -- Most U.S. utilities said today that their power plants and transmission lines are ``Y2K ready,'' though experts still expect some power failures when the New Year comes.

Utilities were asked to report their level of ``readiness'' to the North American Electric Reliability Council today. While a full report on the results won't be ready until July 29, dozens of utilities declared their success at finding and eliminating the Millennium bug. Electric utilities spent billions of dollars over the past several years to prepare for the day when aging computer and analog systems can't determine whether the digits ``00'' represent the year 1900 or 2000. They've been upgrading and testing components of power plants and distribution systems, and setting up contingency plans in case of failures.

``Utilities are scared,'' said Cameron Daley, chief operating officer of Framingham, Massachusetts-based Tava/R.W. Beck, which tested and upgraded systems for more than 100 U.S. utilities. ``The whole grid won't collapse, but there will be outages that could last up to several weeks.''

While no utility has guaranteed there won't be blackouts Jan. 1, industry groups said utilities are doing everything they can to prevent problems, including preparing for the worst.

``We believe Y2K won't be a problem,'' said Eugene Gorzelnik, a spokesman for the council. ``There will be a huge backlash if a utility reports it's Y2K ready, and it turns out that it wasn't.'' Edison International's Southern California Edison utility, which has spent $72 million on Y2K preparation, said it plans to dispatch an extra 500 employees on New Year's Eve. Wisconsin Energy Corp.'s Wisconsin Electric Power Co. plans to have as much as 50 percent more electricity available than it normally needs at that time of year.

Still, deregulation has pushed utilities to cut labor and other costs, and those that are deepest in negotiations with regulators haven't been as focused on preventing problems related to the millennium bug, Daley said.

``The utilities most distracted by deregulation aren't doing enough to identify and prevent problems,'' Daley said. ``There are a number of instances where utilities didn't go deep enough into their systems -- they accepted vendors' words that parts of a system were compliant.'' Even if a utility corrects all the problems in its own system, power still may be cut off to their customers. That's because U.S. and Canadian power lines connect all utilities, and when one utility system breaks down, it could cause problems for others.

``We cannot provide warranties (against blackouts) because our readiness depends in part on other parties,'' said Samuel Manno, director of Niagara Mohawk Power Corp.'s Y2K project.

At the trade council's suggestion, utilities agreed to conduct the first major test of the entire power systems' ability to properly recognize dates beyond 1999 on September 9.

``We hope to learn what still needs to be done at that point and correct any glitches before they happen,'' Gorzelnik said.

-- confused (it's@so.confusing), July 01, 1999

Answers

Even more fun: Tava/R.W. Beck is a company Rick Cowles is (maybe was or still is) affiliated with.

http://www.house.gov/science/cowles_05-14.htm

-- confused (it's@so.confusing), July 01, 1999.

(So, maybe it's time to support this idea? Who knows?)

Congressional Legislation Proposed Calling for Y2K Full Disclosure;Campaign Hopes to Generate 100,000 Support Letters Nationwide

ARLINGTON, Texas, June 30 /PRNewswire/ -- John Mauldin, a nationally recognized Y2K expert, has launched a campaign calling on Congress to pass major legislation, entitled "Y2K Full Disclosure Act," designed to increase disclosure requirements on government agencies, public utilities, and banks and tighten up the enforcement of the Securities and Exchange Commission's suggested disclosure guidelines. He hopes this campaign, he calls "Full Disclosure Now," will generate over 100,000 letters sent to Congress from individuals in support of this legislation.

Mauldin, editor of the investment newsletter Year 2000 Alert and author of the book How to Profit from the Y2K Recession, believes investors have the right to know what is being done to combat the Y2K bug. He believes full disclosure, including total budget allocated, percentage of budget used to date, and where the project stands in relation to 100% completion, is essential to investors in their decision making process.

"Congress has the chance to force government and vital business interests to be completely honest and forthright by passing the Y2K Full Disclosure Act," Mauldin says. "We elect them to take stands for us on issues. It's critical for them to take a stand on this issue and to take it right now!"

The proposal concentrates on four problem areas. The first one would require all federal, state, and local departments, agencies, and bureaus to "publicly post a list of the Y2K status of all software programs and electronic equipment." This includes both "mission-critical" and "non- mission-critical" programs and equipment. The second area addressed would require all utilities, electric, water, and gas, to do the same for their software and equipment which "directly affects the ability of the utility to provide service."

The third area would require the SEC to more aggressively enforce their current disclosure regulations by making the suggested disclosure guidelines mandatory. Legal counsel for many companies rely upon a definition of "materiality" developed for other SEC reports which exempts reporting of expenditures below a certain percentage of the total company budget. The Y2K Full Disclosure Act would clarify that the impact caused by non-compliant equipment failure, not the amount of money spent on Y2K budgets, be the determinant in whether disclosure is required.

"The SEC requires all 'material' information be reported on a quarterly basis," Mauldin says. "Some company lawyers are saying that because the Y2K budget is small compared to the company's total budget, the information is not 'material.' I believe a computer system that may fail and cause an entire company to shut down should be called 'Material,' with a capital M."

The last section of the proposal addresses the banking industry by requiring that the Federal Reserve "disclose the Y2K status of individual banks in November 1999" in order to ensure a safe money supply.

Mr. Mauldin has already presented this proposal to several members of Congress. One member has committed to push the legislation through Congress if the public sends 100,000 letters and emails to "show his colleagues that full disclosure is a national issue and that time is a critical commodity." Mauldin has set up a special section of his website, Millennium Wave Online (http://www.2000wave.com) to help individuals to email their Congressmen and Senators on this issue. He also suggests emailing the link to this page to friends and relatives in order to gain their support as well.

Any web sites that want to join the FDN network need to send an email to webmaster@2000wave.com. They will be sent an icon and link to the "Disclosure" section or Millennium Wave Online.

John Mauldin's Year 2000 Alert is published by Weiss Research and is available by calling 800-317-6278. How to Profit from the Y2K Recession is available at Barnes & Noble bookstores and online at Amazon.com.

-- confused (it's@so.confusing), July 01, 1999.

(And, who's Cameron Daley? A former executive with Boston Edison. Do you think he might in a position to know something? Ack.)

http://www.bedison.com/bse/annual.rep/editorl5.html

-- confused (it's@so.confusing), July 01, 1999.

I often hear of utilities having excess capacity prepared for the rollover. What good does that do if the systems monitoring and adjusting the flow of the systems do not work?

Notice they cannot claim compliance in part because the phone systems themselves are not compliant.

Accepting vendor assurances can be risky. One site reports that these are changing all the time. Some that were compliant are changed to read not compliant.

"Most Utilities" Most is a very interesting number.

Just some thoughts.

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), July 01, 1999.

I have to wonder if any testing is actually going on during these supposed test dates. I had power go out at my house for an hour on April 9th. I called to find out what that was about and was told that it ws a burned out transformer near my house. No mention of testing or faulty programming. That they are choosing these known failure dates to do their "testing" seems awfully fishy to me.

-- Dancr (minddancr@aol.com), July 01, 1999.

The gloomy gus in the above is the CEO for Tava Beck. Take a look at some of his other recent press releases.

http://www.tavabeck.com/pressmain.html

And don't miss their neat stuff off the main page.

Talk about blowing hot and cold with the same breath! You can either take it that he is trying to drum up more business, or he doesn't believe the stuff he has on his own website about the TB proven approach to power plants and so forth. You decide.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), July 01, 1999.

Here's some older news, with mentions of TAVA. Debunked by the Engineer and Dan the Power man. We hope.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), July 01, 1999.

I hope Rick Cowles is lurking on this thread.

-- confused (it's@so.confusing), July 01, 1999.

Paul --- it isn't binary, which you should understand. Good news (utility progress, improbably entire grid will go down) is not incompatible with bad news (probable shutdowns in specific areas). Even KOSKINEN has long admitted this possbility.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), July 01, 1999.

The question is, WHICH part of the grid is likely to shut down?

Anybody know the answer to THAT one? Surely someone must at least SUSPECT which areas of the country may be in for major problems.

Also, I don't recall Koskinen saying anything about outages lasting several weeks. Do you?

-- confused (it's@so.confusing), July 01, 1999.

Not disagreeing with that Big Dog - just pointing out that the guy is a whole lot rosier when he is talking in house. I kind of doubt actual outages myself - more like temporary shortages where some plants are asked to shut down for a week or two. But I admit that is a guess.

But here is something odd (no, I'm not paranoid, I just said it was odd)

The Cutter Consortium Y2000 Advisory Service Senior Consultants: Rick Cowles - Rick Cowles Rick Cowles is the director of industry Y2000 solutions for TAVA/R..W. Beck LLC, a Seattle, Washington-based partnership focused on Year 2000 solutions and configuration management in the electric utility markets. Prior to this position --http://cutter.com/consortium/consultants/rcbio.html

That chunk of boilerplate is off a search on yahoo for 'Tava Beck'. It should be what was on Rick Cowles bio on that site. Follow the link - it doesn't say that any more. Must have changed since the last time Yahoo read the site. Guess Cowles left Tava or something.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), July 01, 1999.

With a scant six months until 1/1/2000, it is ludicrous to even be in the position of having to play these guessing games with such an important industry. The statements issued by the power industry would be bad enough if this were July 1, 1998. Given its 1999 speaks for itself.

I am planning my life around the very real possibility that there will be serious, long term power problems next year (in addition to lots of other Y2K induced major problems). If I am wrong, no big deal, just out time and money this year. But if I am right....

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), July 01, 1999.

Confused,

Got a link for that? I tried searching bloomberg.com but couldn't find the story...

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), July 01, 1999.

No, Koskinem hasn't said several weeks (that would be a pisser, wouldn't it)? I simply reiterate here what so many of us do, tiresome though it is: it's July, 1999 and the sheer amount of uncertainty, not only about utilities, but oil, gas, water, food supply chain, medical supply chain, markets and banks, etc., remains quite demoralizing.

Or at least, as a husband and father to five, it is demoralizing to ME.

I am so thankful for our family preps and so angry/sad when I consider the vast unpreparedness of our fellow citizens. Three weeks without power in YOUR locale doesn't have to be disastrous to anyone (not the end of the world, etc). It's the denial, aided by the lack of political courage, that is so endlessly infuriating. For starters, it aims to place me in the position of having to decide who to help and who, by implication, to "hurt" if things go south where I am. Why should ANY citizen have been placed, if only by official passivity, in that position?

Rant off. For now.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), July 01, 1999.

Rick Cowles left TAVA|BECK early this year. I think around Feb/March.

For those who don't know much about TAVA|BECK ...

RW BECK's an engineering company that's been in business for over 50 years. Since 1942, R.W. Beck has planned, designed and developed electric power generating, transmission, and distribution facilities. They specialize in providing engineering services to electric utilities, particularly in the area of risk assessment and planning. Beck's utility client list numbers more than 1,000.

TAVA's a system integrator. They were the first company to develop an extensive database for manufacturing and process control Y2K embedded systems issues, which is now used by a wide range of industries and the government. TAVA|BECK is a joint venture formed in March '98.

Example of a happy customer: "We have used R.W. Beck as our consulting engineer for over 15 years. R.W. Beck has supported IMPA in the planning, engineering, financing and implementation of over $320,000,000 of utility capital projects including power generation, electric transmission, and substation facilities." Raj G. Rao, President, Indiana Municipal Power Agency http://www.tavabeck.com/

I'd say TAVA|BECK knows what they're talking about.

Lisa - The engineer & Dan the Power Man didn't debunk anything. The article from that other link lacked specifics and was confusing.

Without specifics it's hard to tell - but let's just say I'm very skeptical about this whole statement. -- The Engineer (The Engineer@tech.com), June 03, 1999

I, too, am a bit confused about what exactly was meant ... Maybe they were referring to the remote transmitting unit also having its clock rolled forward, and were seeing if an alarm signal pass through the remote unit properly. -- Dan the Power Man (dgman19938@aol.com), June 03, 1999.

-- Cheryl (Transplant@Oregon.com), July 01, 1999.

At the trade council's suggestion, utilities agreed to conduct the first major test of the entire power systems' ability to properly recognize dates beyond 1999 on September 9. ``We hope to learn what still needs to be done at that point and correct any glitches before they happen,'' Gorzelnik said. ========================================================

NATIONWIDE TEST OF ENTIRE NORTH AMERICAN ELECTRICAL SYSTEM

The September 9, 1999 drill is expected to be a dress rehearsal for rollover from December 31, 1999 to January 1, 2000. This drill may include reducing planned outages, modified committment of resources, redispatch of generation and transmission loading, cooperation with electric market participants, and staffing of all critical facilities. The goal would be to simulate system conditions and operating plans for the Y2K transition as closely as possible without increasing risks to personnel and equipment safety or system operating security." NERC: ftp://www.nerc.com/pub/sys/all_updl/docs/y2k/drills.pdf

-- Cheryl (Transplant@Oregon.com), July 01, 1999.

In the 9 April drill they used their walkie talkies to say hello to one another. I hear in the 1 September drill they will use their cell phones to order pizza.

-- a (a@a.a), July 01, 1999.

Two nights ago, we had a storm-induced power outage that lasted through the night until yesterday morning. It was a small taste of what will happen if we lose the grid. It was very scary.

I hope to God that the power companies are right, that they will be ready...but I am, to be polite, dubious about the spate of claims that coincide with the June 30 deadline.

Check this LINK to Y2K Newswire for an interesting and thorough analysis of the power company readiness announcements.

-- Sandmann (Sandmann@alasbab.com), July 01, 1999.

Sandmann,

No offense. I understand "boilerplate" public relations. The question is this: if they are "boilerplate" P.R. announcements, who's behind it? NERC? That would be my guess. Anybody know?

Back to my original burning questions:

Which part of the grid may be in the most trouble? Isn't that what everyone wants to know?

Does anyone have the time or resources to phone Bloomberg or Cameron Daley and find out WHO--SPECIFICALLY (Which utility? Where?) IS SCARED?

To Drew Parkhill, and other journalists, (and also Rick Cowles) we know you're lurking. You have the power to follow up on this. I think you know why it's important to do so.

For one reason, if the power stays up, everything else can be fixed--eventually.

If the power goes out in the middle of Winter, people will die.

Get on it. Pretty please?

-- confused (it's@so.confusing), July 01, 1999.

Tech 32,

The Bloomberg report surfaced on a subscriber-based news service this morning. I can't give you a direct link, but Reuters, UPI or AP may pick up on it tomorrow, as may Bloomberg. Try searching again.

-- confused (it's@so.confusing), July 01, 1999.

This thread has now been cross-posted at Rick Cowles' electricity forum.

For "Newbies," you can access Rick Cowles forum by copying and pasting the following link into your browser: http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a.tcl?topic=Electric%20Utilities %20and%20Y2K

Or, you can type in www.euy2k.com

Then click on the blue button for "discussion forums."

Then click on "open forum."

-- confused (it's@so.confusing), July 01, 1999.

I just checked the above cut and paste, and for some reason, it doesn't work.

This one will though:

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/index.tcl

Cut and paste, then click on "Electric Utilities and Y2k."

As an alternative, perhaps someone could contribute a hotlink?

-- confused (it's@so.confusing), July 01, 1999.

I didn't find the above article on Bloomberg, but did find another one about the electric industry that had a couple of statements that did nothing to *allay* my worries.

Electricity Traders Ride Summer Roller Coaster: Power Watch

snippets

Monday's activity [wide swings in the cost of a megawatt of power] raised fears among some traders that they're one heat wave away from the near breakdown of the market last June, when prices soared to as high as $7,000 a megawatt hour in the Midwest. The rapid rise crippled profits of power-strapped utilities that had to buy electricity on the open market and of industrial users left without a dependable supply.

Utility executives say they've done everything they can to make sure there won't be a repeat this summer. Among other things, they're not going to shut down generating plants for maintenance as they normally do.

[uh... wasn't that when they were going to bring the equipment into Y2K compliance???]

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), July 01, 1999.

Finally, a link.

http://www.aol.com/mynews/business/story.adp/cat=020102&id=19990630080 19182

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), July 02, 1999.

You can delay maintainence for a couple months Linda, not forever. Certain things have to be done regularly or efficiency goes down. We run about 20% excess capacity if it was all turned on at once - but that 20% is the maintainence factor. The Japanese run on a 10% maintainence factor, but they rebuild equipment to a higher standard than we do. And I don't care if they replace the slag control sensor system now or 3 months from now - as long as it is done before it MUST be done. Second guessing someone elses schedule is a losing game.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), July 02, 1999.

It is frustrating to have to play all of these guessing games.

I agree with the poster who said that TAVA should be in a position to know what they are talking about. Also, as I recall, TAVA is one of the primary outfits helping GM remediate their many embedded systems in their production plants. (See the April 1998 "Fortune" article on GM and Y2K.) If GM is willing to entrust its corporate survival to these fellows, that should tell us something.

-- Don Florence (dflorence@zianet.com), July 02, 1999.

My Y2K vacation was way too short.

Actually, according to a published letter some weeks ago from Georgia State Rep. George Grindley, head of that state's Year 2000 Task Force, Koskinen did privately tell Georgian state officials, including the state's CIO, to prepare for power outages of up to three weeks, though such prolonged outages were considered only a remote possibility. As I recall, North's site had a link to it; I'm sure you could find it under the "power grid" archive.

If Grindley has since been debunked and I somehow missed that fact, please forgive me. It's hard to keep track of everything.

Furthermore, as I recollect, Grindley wrote that Koskinen cited the threat not only of Y2K but also of solar flares (we may be in the most active sunspot cycle ever recorded; it is due to peak during January to April of next year, drat the luck) AND of cyber terrorists. I think that last one may be the real kicker here. I know that some people on this forum and elsewhere have said that govt. talk about the seriousness of cyber terrorism is just flak to cover the Y2K threat, but I don't think that's necessarily true. About a year ago I read a mainstream news article (AP, Reuters, or whatever) that published the summary results of a joint NSA/DoD/FBI exercise in 1997. In that exercise, ten cells of highly trained, well-coordinated hackers were set up: five cells within the U.S., five cells abroad. The purpose was to see how much damage they could theoretically inflict on selected key targets in our computerized infrastructure and defense systems, and also to see how easy it would be to locate these cyber terrorist cells. According to the news article, the FBI was able to locate only two cells, both in the U.S. And that's the good news. The bad news was that the experiment revealed it was possible not only to take down command of the Pacific Fleet but also to take down the North American Power Grid. There were no details given: just these kind of "news article" summary statements of the experiment. No info about how long the grid would be expected to be down under such circumstances or whether the NSA and DoD coordinated this exercise with major power companies, etc.

I should have printed the article out at the time and kept it, and I would dearly love to hear from anybody else who saw it. At the time I had all sorts of reservations about it anyway, the first and most obvious being, "If this is true, why in holy hell would you publish the results? Why broadcast to cyber terrorists at home and abroad the fact that our power system is highly vulnerable to such attacks? Or is this actually a counterintelligence measure to distract such terrorists and have them waste their time going after relatively invulnerable targets?" Well, who knows? Also, I couldn't imagine how cyber terrorists, no matter how skilled and coordinated, could actually take down the whole grid system. Wouldn't you have to simultaneously target a number of the 200 or so bulk power control centers? Is that feasible? Or is there another way?

Because of these reservations, I continued to focus on Y2K, a subject that I know a little (very little) about, rather than stray off into the whole issue of cyber terrorism, about which I know absolutely nothing.

But Grindley's letter, IF it is valid, has reawakened my concerns. All relevant, reliable info on this topic would be greatly appreciated.

-- Don Florence (dflorence@zianet.com), July 02, 1999.

First answer on the euy2k forum:

(grumble grumble; another thing to add to my list of "things to do")

I'll try to follow up tomorrow, but a lot of people took off for the long weekend today. Sidenote: I can't imagine a business-saavy guy like Cam Daley saying something like this for publication. My guess is that he may have been seriously misquoted (like that's never happened to me before).

The only reason I haven't posted this article in the euy2k.com newsroom is because there's not a verifiable reference to it. All I've seen is references to the daily Bloomberg Report (very credible, if true...), and I don't subscribe to Bloomberg.

-- Rick Cowles (rcowles@waterw.com), July 01, 1999.

-- confused (it's@so.confusing), July 02, 1999.

The above link to the original Bloomberg story doesn't work.

This one does. Check it out.

Would someone please make it a hotlink? Thanks

http://www.aol.com/mynews/business/story.adp/cat=020102&id=19990630080 19182

-- confused (it's@so.confusing), July 02, 1999.

Sorry. There's something wrong with the above "cut and paste" process.

However, if you go to that URL, then access the search engine and search on "blackout," the story will appear.

Sorry for the three ring circus. The story is real.

-- confused (it's@so.confusing), July 02, 1999.

confused,

There is a problem with cutting and pasting. When it wraps it inserts a space. Remove the space from the URL and it works.

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), July 02, 1999.

While we wait to see what Mr. Cowles has to say about his erstwhile colleague, perhaps you might enjoy a bit a humor inspired by this article, from the c.s.y2k forum:

> >Utilities Say They're Y2K Ready, Though Blackouts Expected > ... > > Finally, a solid definition of "ready". > > "Ready" means "won't work". > > Someone better tell McIssac, who is pumped on pintos and posting up a storm in full-toot mode over the clearly fabricated "98% ready" claim today. "Utilities 100% Y2K Ready, But Blackouts Likely" "Banks 100% Ready, But Don't Try to Withdraw Your Money" "Defense Department Ready, But Anthrax Attack Considered Likely" "Nuclear Plants Ready, But "Contingency Plan" Calls for Martial Law" "Russia is Now 100% Ready, But Computers Expected to Fail" "China is Ready, But Asks "What Am Y2K?"" "Washington, D.C. is Ready, But Has Run Out of Money with 17% Done" "Bradley Sherman is Ready, But is Buying Extra White Resin Lawn Chairs" "Ignorance is Strength, Freedom is Slavery" --Tim May

(ROTFL! Thanks. I needed that!)

-- confused (it's@so.confusing), July 02, 1999.

(Let's see if I can format that a little bit better)

While we wait to see what Mr. Cowles has to say about his erstwhile colleague, perhaps you might enjoy a bit a humor inspired by this article, from the c.s.y2k forum:

Utilities Say They're Y2K Ready, Though Blackouts Expected

Finally, a solid definition of "ready".

"Ready" means "won't work".

Someone better tell McIssac, who is pumped on pintos and posting up a storm in full-toot mode over the clearly fabricated "98% ready" claim today.

Utilities 100% Y2K Ready, But Blackouts Likely"

"Banks 100% Ready, But Don't Try to Withdraw Your Money"

"Defense Department Ready, But Anthrax Attack Considered Likely"

"Nuclear Plants Ready, But "Contingency Plan" Calls for Martial Law"

"Russia is Now 100% Ready, But Computers Expected to Fail"

"China is Ready, But Asks "What Am Y2K?""

"Washington, D.C. is Ready, But Has Run Out of Money with 17% Done"

"Bradley Sherman is Ready, But is Buying Extra White Resin Lawn Chairs"

"Ignorance is Strength, Freedom is Slavery"

--Tim May

(ROTFL! Thanks. I needed that!)

-- confused (it's@so.confusing), July 02, 1999.

Here's the URL for the Rep. Grindley letter I mentioned above: www.garynorth.com/y2k/detail_.cfm/4836 Grindley, head of Georgia's Task Force 2000, is misinformed in what he says about nukes and the NRC's plans, but he seems clear and authoritative enough in reporting what Koskinen privately told leading state officials. Notice, also, that Grindley believes DoD is worried about the cyber terrorist threat to power grids. Does anybody have any independent verification of Grindley's statements?

Re the Bloomberg News article, while I agree with Mr. Cowles that it is surprising that Daley would make such strong statements for publication, I doubt if he were misquoted: there are several quotations from Daley in the article and they are logically consistent with one another. Besides, in one sense there is really nothing new here: distraction because of deregulation, plus overreliance on vendor statements (and/or type testing), might, repeat might, lead to some serious problems. Who knows?

Even NERC has warned against putting too much reliance on vendor statements and type testing, at least for some embedded systems; so has Mr. Cowles. Mr. Daley of TAVA is simply driving the point home.

-- Don Florence (dflorence@zianet.com), July 02, 1999.

(These two comments just in from Rick Cowles' forum):

This Bloomberg News article is indeed legit. To access it, take the URL originally given above and add 19182 at the end. That will take you directly to the story itself, not just to the AOL search engine. ("Confused" was right: putting "blackout" into the AOL search engine for news articles will also bring this story up, along with several dozen more. That's how I found it.)

I'm also surprised that Mr. Daley would say anything this strong for publication, though in one respect there is really nothing new here: distraction because of deregulation, plus overreliance on vendor compliance statements (and type testing), might equal some serious problems. Might. Who knows?

Anyway, it certainly does not sound as though Mr. Daley was in any way "misquoted": there are several quotations here from him, and they are logically consistent with one another. Besides, even NERC has warned against too much reliance upon vendor statements and type testing, as has Mr. Cowles.

-- Don Florence (dflorence@zianet.com), July 02, 1999.

Thanks for the reference, folks. It now qualifies for the newsroom. ;-) Now, all I gotta do is get a minute to do an update to the newsroom...I should be able to do that about April 14, 2001.

P.S. to Don: I concur with your assessment of the article.

-- Rick Cowles (rcowles.remove@waterw.com), July 02, 1999.

(Cowles' newsroom is located at www.euy2k.com)

-- confused (it's@so.confusing), July 02, 1999.

Rick Cowles site is now Energyland @: http://www.energyland.net/

-- Truth Seeker (truthseeker@ seektruth.always), December 28, 1999.