COMMENTARY
Vital lessons learned in power-line meetings
By Robbie Alm
On seeing a dog walk on its hind legs, the noted British writer Samuel Johnson once remarked: "It's not that it's done well, the amazing thing is that it is done at all."
At Hawaiian Electric Co., we hope all our efforts will be done well, but we know that as we try new ways to work with the community, we will not get it right every time, and we will have lots of chances to learn from each experience.
In June and July, HECO went to the community to seek public input about the East O'ahu Transmission Project. In brief, we are studying three alternative underground routes designed to meet the electric power reliability concerns that the so-called Wa'ahila Ridge overhead line was designed to address.
Wa'ahila Ridge is off the table, but our concern about reliability is stronger than ever. In the aftermath of the Northeast blackout last month, every newspaper and television station (and many individuals) called to ask us, "Could it happen here?" We think about it all the time.
The prospect of a major blackout that could last for hours or days — endangering lives, crippling businesses, damaging livelihoods and hassling everyone — is the nightmare of everyone who works for the electric company, where we take our responsibility to provide reliable, affordable power very, very seriously.
In our effort to get public input, we held seven public meetings and answered some 450 questions verbally or in writing. Those attending the meetings were invited to submit their opinions on questionnaires or any other way they liked. We established a Web site to receive comments and a telephone line to respond to questions.
So what did we learn from this experience?
1. Anything that Hawaiian Electric does will carry with it the history of past actions and the public's feeling about them. We cannot ignore those feelings in the processes we create.
Clearly, the intent of our recent process was to seek the public's help in answering a specific question: which of three routes we should use to strengthen the reliability of the major portion of our system. We were and are very serious about this reliability challenge and our need to address it. Our hope, therefore, was to focus the conversation on the choice at hand. In hindsight, we should have given people more opportunity to just speak their piece. And that is especially true when the process follows on the heels of a very controversial process, as this one did.
Lesson No. 1: Let the feelings come out.
2. We can never forget who we are as a company. Any process we engage in cannot be looked at dispassionately. We must always view it in the context of who we are.
We are a monopoly. We are big. Our plants and our lines are intrusive and unattractive; and at least some people view us as a very control-oriented company. Against that background, any process we engage in must avoid any sense of being overly controlling, because it ends up having a negative compounding effect. As one community activist told us, "At a gut level, I feel controlled by you, and I resent it."
Lesson No. 2: When you're big, find a way to keep your size from being reflected in the process. Less control and more openness should be the operating philosophy.
3. Some decisions are not easy to ask of people. Everyone knows that one of the toughest issues any community faces is the siting of facilities. Over the years, we have struggled as a community with everything from reliever airports to prisons, power plants to treatment facilities, landfills to power lines. These are tough, emotional decisions, especially for those facing the prospect of having those facilities in their neighborhoods. One common thread to most such decisions, however, is that the public process involved a single proposal at a specific location.
Our process tried to do something different — ask the public to join us at an earlier stage of the process, at the point where the location of the project is being picked. One of the criticisms of the process was that we "pitted neighborhoods against each other." Certainly we had no such intent, but it is inherent in a siting decision that one site or route gets picked and the others don't.
We are, in spite of everything that's been said, getting excellent feedback from this process, so that as difficult as it is to be involved in this kind of work, many in our community have chosen to do so. At another level, the challenge of choosing among neighborhoods was one of the reasons why the "no action" or "no need" response was one to which many people gravitated, since it appeared to make choosing unnecessary.
We will continue to seek community input, but we will also have to consider carefully whether certain decisions can really be based solely upon such input.
Lesson No. 3: For facility-siting issues, a community process in which there is more than one option on the table may not achieve the best outcome. We may need to find another way to seek and consider such input.
4. A consistent theme of some feedback centered on whether the project was needed and why there was not a "no action" alternative — a reasonable request, but not a simple one.
"No action" is an option inherent in all decision-making. Along with any set of proposed actions, a decision-maker can always choose to do nothing. In this case, the PUC can determine that we should take no action to enhance our system. That is the commission's call, and we will respect it.
The challenge for us is that under current utility standards as we understand them, we are obligated to take action. For us unilaterally to ignore standards and sit by hoping there will be no price to pay for not taking action is a risk we cannot take, especially when it involves a substantial number of our customers. It is HECO's responsibility to ensure that we provide safe and reliable power to keep the lights on, and we take that responsibility very seriously.
Given that scenario — that we see ourselves as having no legal option other than to take the issue to the decision-makers — is it really right to put an alternative on the table (no action) which we know we cannot consider? I don't know which would frustrate people more — the lack of a no-action scenario or a no-action scenario that generates much discussion that we then ignore. From my point of view, the latter is worse. I would never want to put forth a phony option.
5. In an effort to create a situation where Hawaiian Electric was not controlling the process, we hired two of the most respected facilitators in Hawai'i, and partly at their suggestion hired independent recorders to note the community input and create the final report of the process. The facilitators then created the process used at the meetings. While that process has had its critics, it also provided a clear opportunity for individuals who are hesitant to speak in groups — especially where there is a substantial level of emotion in the room — to get their concerns addressed. It did ensure that the most common questions were given priority; and it did focus the discussion on the project issues as much as possible.
We welcome all comments on the process, including the use of independent facilitators. We want to learn from this work; we want and need public input on the actions we must take; and finding the best process is important to us.
6. Finally, there was the question of where the meetings were held. We tried to keep the meetings at central locations that met certain standards: ample parking and (in the summer months) air conditioning, for example. We tried to have two different kinds of meetings: islandwide public forums and neighborhood-based advisory committee meetings. We added a meeting at a location picked by community groups.
Nonetheless, our choices offended some people. We apologize for that. We intended no offense.
In the end, for all the "hind-leg walking," the process brought forth important community wisdom on both process and outcome. We deeply appreciate all the input we received. It will help us make the best decision we can on the issue we currently face.
As to the issue of more public process, we are in this for the long run. We have learned from this experience; we will do better as we go; and as we move forward, we are committed to receiving public input as part of our planning process. Aloha.
Robbie Alm is Hawaiian Electric Co.'s senior vice president for public affairs.
