Con Ed's Latest Infrastructure Problem - Power Grid Plagued By Monk Parakeets, Nests - NYT

[hatrack]

Many of Con Edison’s challenges are well known — blackouts and steam pipe explosions included — but a lesser-known problem has proved no less nagging: How to protect its equipment from the thousands of monk parakeets that nest in the utility poles of Queens and Brooklyn. These birds — also called monk parrots or Quaker parrots — are attracted to the heat given off by the transformers and other equipment high up on the utility poles. Their nests often wreck the electrical equipment by engulfing the electrical devices and blocking ventilation.

The resulting trapped heat can cause the devices to short-circuit and often, to catch fire, sometimes leading to local power failures. Con Edison officials have tried to shoo the birds with nets, spikes, deterrent sprays and sound machines. “None have been successful,” said Al Williams, a senior scientist with Con Ed who tracks the monk parakeet, a native of South America. According to the prevailing theory, the birds escaped from cargo at Kennedy International Airport and now proliferate mostly in Brooklyn and Queens, with perhaps 300 nests that cause “a tremendous cost” to Con Edison, Mr. Williams said. In eight fires on overhead equipment in past 18 months, the nests are the main suspects.

One Con Edison crew has come up with its own solution: a plastic, battery-powered owl that swivels its head and makes a hooting noise, bought right at a local nursery. The idea came from Gerry Goodwin, 65, a 44-year Con Edison veteran who tired of continually replacing the 24,000-volt feeder enclosure on a pole on 11th Avenue, just off Clintonville Street in Whitestone, Queens, which has become a main parakeet habitat, along with Canarsie and Midwood in Brooklyn.

“These things cost about $20,000 to replace, and we’ve gone through five in the past couple years,” Mr. Goodwin said of the feeder enclosures. “These nests are killing us.” Pondering the problem, Mr. Goodwin recalled that a co-worker had installed a plastic owl on his boat to keep seagulls away.

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/nyregion/18metjournal.html?_r=1

[Tesha]

1. Parrots are very clever.

Eventually, these guys will probably start to take the batteries
out if the battery-powered owls and start to use those batteries
in the parrots' iPods and Flymen.

Tesha