Hundreds of Midwestern Power customers and two squirrels were very unlucky one day last fall.
Apparently a squirrel came into contact with an overhead transformer and knocked out service to 177 customers. Power was restored in just under an hour, but naturally the squirrel lost it’s life. The remains were found by repair crews.
Just 40 miles away in Ironwood, Mich, another squirrel got into a substation and caused a temporary power outage that affected 1400 customers.
The power company is now thinking about what kind of steps it can take to keep curious animals away from the lines as they, along with weather, are one of the leading causes of power outages.
“We kind of liken it to anyone who’s had a bird feeder and tried to keep the squirrels out,” said the power company spokesperson. “They find a way.”
Good luck!
I just wanted to take a moment to wish all my visitors a happy new year filled with health and happiness. May your resolutions not be broken!
Hopefully you didn’t party as much on New Years Eve as this little creature did!
Wordless Wednesday
The super hero of the wild?
Officials in N.J. has warned squirrel hunters, who live and hunt near a toxic waste dump, about consuming the pesky rodents because they could be contaminated with lead.
This is the one and only time the State has cautioned Ringwood residents, many of whom are members of the Ramapough Mountain Indian tribe who hunt and fish in the area.
Two months ago a lead contaminated squirrel was found in the area which prompted the agency, along with the state department of Environmental Protection to send out letters advising that adults eat squirrel no more than twice a week, and less for children and pregnant women.
Lead is harmful even in small amounts. It can damage the nervous system, red blood cell production and the kidneys.
“We’ve known for a long time something was wrong here, we just didn’t know what it was,” resident Myrtle Van Dunk said.
Residents and many environmental activists believe the lead comes from toxic waste, including paint sludge, dumped in the area by the Ford Motor Co. during the 1960s and early 1970s, from its now-closed car manufacturing plant in Mahwah.
Ford is removing thousands of tons of waste from a 500-acre former mining property in the Ringwood area. The site was recently relisted on the federal Superfund list, a ranking of the country’s worst environmental dump sites, after multiple cleanups failed to remove all the sludge.
Does anyone else besides me think it’s odd that in this day and age that so many people are eating squirrel on a regular basis that a warning like this had to be made?
