Essex electricity supplier fined $5K over not keeping inspection records

Following a review by the Ontario Electricity Board, E.L.K. Energy Inc. has agreed to pay a $5,000 fine for not keeping a record of its inspections. 

The company, which supplies electricity to the town of Essex, Lakeshore and Kingsville, has long been the target of resident complaints regarding frequent power flickers and outages. The town of Essex is the shareholder of E.L.K.

In March of last year, the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) started to inspect the company and found that E.L.K. did not keep records of its inspections as it couldn't provide evidence that it had inspected its assets. 

The investigation also found that E.L.K. doesn't have "formal asset inspection procedures in place and instead relies on verbal reporting of issues identified during inspections." 

E.L.K., according to OEB, also confirmed that it had no documents to show that inspections were planned or that "corrective actions" were taken on the issues that were identified. 

According to OEB, E.L.K. said during the inspection it had turnover of management and staff and the company stated that the lack of these types of formal procedures and documentation were the result of former employees. 

In an email to CBC News, E.L.K. said the fine is the result of inspections before October 2021. 

It said its new management team has now put in a "formalized" inspection process since then and that one third of its service area was inspected in December 2021, as was required by the OEB. 

"The organization has worked with the Ontario Energy Board since 2020 and has had historical financial statement audits,  regulatory audits, pole inspection study and asset conditional assessment," E.L.K.'s statement reads. 

The OEB's findings are no surprise to REFAC Industrial Contractors Inc., a welding company in Harrow, which told CBC News its been dealing with flickers and power outages for years. 

Since 2013, the company claims it has had to pay $142,000 out of pocket to repair or replace equipment — mostly welding machines — that was damaged due to the power going on and off in short periods of time. 

REFAC said it has kept detailed logs of each power outage, which it showed to CBC News. According to REFAC's logs, the power outages began in 2003 and have continued to this day. 

"It's easy just to pass the buck and that's exactly what I felt like they did to us," said REFAC's office administrator Heidi Hamlin. 

"We don't get what we paid for, but on top of that we have to absorb the losses because everybody washes their hands and goes, 'not our problem.'"