Prince George's County power struggle

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Aug 8, 2007 by Andy Rosen

Is there enough power in one Prince George's County neighborhood for an amusement park, a megachurch and hundreds of homes? Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. and Evangel Cathedral are trying to find out.

Evangel Cathedral, a congregation of more than 2,000 in Upper Marlboro, sits next to Six Flags America in Largo. The congregation has complained to the Maryland Public Service Commission that its facilities suffer from fluctuations in power during summer months when Six Flags is at its heaviest operation.

The cathedral logged nearly 25 power surges in 2005 and 2006, according to documents filed with the PSC. Most lasted between a few seconds and a few minutes, though one was as long as 2 1/2 hours. Evangel Cathedral wants BGE to improve the reliability of its service, but the two sides have not settled on what is causing the problem.

At a mediation session before a PSC hearing examiner Tuesday, BGE and Evangel Cathedral agreed to monitor the cathedral's power supply together to determine once and for all what is causing the problem. The two sides did not have data that they felt was comparable.

"This is not something that happens every day, but it happens ... we have these interruptions, we have these outages," said Evangel Cathedral elder R. Kevin Matthews. "All we want is this to stop."

Kimberly A. Curry, counsel for BGE, said there has been nothing to suggest that Six Flags has anything to do with the problems that the cathedral is experiencing. She noted that there are two lines feeding into the theme park.

"Just naturally, the strain on the system in the summer might be greater," Curry said. "There could be other reasons, but I don't think it's because of Six Flags' operations."

She said BGE has not seen severe power outages or surges, and pointed out that changes have fallen within regulatory limits. The cathedral says it has equipment in place to see whether it is causing the power surges and outages with its own activities.

Six Flags is not named in Evangel Cathedral's complaint, aside from a

mention about the period of time when the problems are most severe. A spokeswoman for Six Flags America declined to comment.

If BGE and Evangel Cathedral are able to get to the bottom of the issue, it could shed some light on potential power problems around the neighborhood.

Homeowners in the area, which is near the border between the service areas of Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. and Potomac Electric Power Co., say they have experienced blackouts lasting as long as three days in recent years.

Tom Frutchey, sales manager at Cameron Grove, a nearby 745-unit housing development, said he has generators to supply power to the condominiums that make up about a third of the units when power fails. However, that generation does not cover the remaining houses in the development.