A powerful history
WANTAGE In the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Lee and an early October snowstorm, a great many Sussex County residents felt powerless and quite literally so.
On Monday, High Point Regional High School hosted some 500 Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative (SREC) members at the co-ops annual meeting, which marked 75 years of providing area residents with electricity. During the evening the various speakers noted that although there were widespread outages during these storms, all SREC members had power restored within three days, as opposed to residents served by a competitor who were without power for much longer periods.
SREC Chairman of the Board Jack Haggerty opened the meeting with a bit of history. Back in 1935, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 7037, which created the REA (Rural Electrification Act) and made available low interest loans so everyone could have electricity.
Haggerty pointed out that at that time, only people living in towns, cities or on major roadways enjoyed the benefits of electricity. In 2012, it is hard to believe that nine out of 10 homes did not have electricity in the mid-1930s. Two residents who lived in the area before electricity arrived were among those in the audience.
According to Haggerty, the power companies did not want to invest in new lines that would only serve a few homes. So, people in rural areas often went without. Such was the case in much of Sussex County. SREC started in 1937 with about 150 members, mostly farmers, who wanted to bring electricity to the country. Ironically, in todays power grid, co-ops serve 75 percent of the nations total area, although this only represents 11 to 12 percent of the population.
Today, Sussex Rural Electric serves some 11,640 customers. And many more would like to become customers, but that will be up to the state to decide.
Getting a bigger perspective The keynote speaker for the evening was former Congressman Glenn English of Oklahoma, who is president and CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). That is the national service organization dedicated to representing the national interests of cooperative electric utilities and the consumers they serve.
English, a mesmerizing and intriguing lecturer, shared not just the history of the industry but also his views on the beginning and development of rural electric service. He said that it took a great many people of different ideologies and interests to come together to accomplish what needed to be done.
He noted that at the time, local representatives in Washington may have liked the idea of providing power to rural areas, but by themselves they lacked the ability to bring it about without working hand in hand with other legislators. He remarked that what made the program a success was the willingness of each party involved in the process to compromise as he lamented that the word has become anathema in todays political discourse.
Q&A session Near the end of the meeting, SREC president and CEO Jim Siglin stood by his convictions and faith in the company and its efforts as he answered questions from members who asked general questions as well as from one member who was obviously distraught about a localized power outage.
Residents of Vernon, Wantage and reportedly Sussex have been attempting to have their local governments petition the state to allow them to switch from their current power provider, Jersey Central Power and Light, to SREC. According to Siglin there has been no progress in the effort and it is not clear if such a change will take place.
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