{"id":1818,"date":"2026-10-06T10:27:01","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T15:27:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.justintimejackie.com\/?p=1818"},"modified":"2026-10-11T10:31:54","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T15:31:54","slug":"vegetation-management-not-an-issue-for-nipsco-president-parisi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.justintimejackie.com\/?p=1818","title":{"rendered":"Vegetation management not an issue for NIPSCO president Parisi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Not the trees in the utility’s right-of-way, but customers\u2019 trees caused the problems<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In testimony before a meeting of Indiana elected officials last week, NIPSCO President and COO Vince Parisi said the trees that downed power lines were not an issue in the utility\u2019s response to severe storms in August that resulted in power outages affecting more than 387,000 of its customers.

Parisi was testifying at the September 29th Interim Study Committee on Energy, Utilities, and Telecommunications chaired by State Senator Ed Soliday, (R-Valparaiso).

\u201cFor this storm it really wasn\u2019t a vegetation management issue. These were very high winds, very large trees outside our right-of-ways that came down on our infrastructure,\u201d stated Parisi.

Parisi said utility poles failed because they could not withstand 100 miles per hour winds. He said 5 transmission towers were damaged, 1500 wood poles were damaged and had to be replaced.

But the utility\u2019s vegetation management was an issue for others who testified at the hearing.

\u201cI think NIPSCO is in denial when they say they have taken care of the vegetation. I have pictures on my phone where the lines are intermingled with the vegetation,\u201d said Rep. Vernon Smith (D-Gary).

State Rep. Mike Andrade (D-Munster) said his constituents were concerned about NIPSCO\u2019s vegetation maintenance. \u201cI repeatedly heard from constituents about NIPSCO\u2019s vegetation management practices. Over the years they called NIPSCO and no action was taken to trim or remove trees obstructing the power lines.\u201d

And vegetation management was an issue with the committee, shown by witnesses it had invited to speak.

The committee heard from Luke Wilson of the Indiana Office of Energy Development. Wilson said NIPSCO reported spending on average, $25 million a year on vegetation management over the last 5 years.

\u201cIf there is spending alleged to be in one area is actually found spent in a different area, that\u2019s perjury,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cThe IURC can disallow it and penalize the utility in the rate making process.\u201d

Testimony similar to this will likely be heard when the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission brings public hearings to northwest Indiana in its investigation of NIPSCO\u2019s response to the August storms and power outages.

It\u2019s the same commission that holds meetings across northern Indiana when NIPSCO seeks to raise costs to its customers. Known as rate cases, those commission meetings gave customers the opportunity to voice their opinions on the proposed rate change.

The IURC is investigating NIPSCO\u2019s power outage restoration procedures and practices following the August 11th storm. In Gary and nearby areas, tens of thousands of residents waited 2 weeks for their power to be restored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not the trees in the utility’s right-of-way, but customers\u2019 trees caused the problems In testimony before a meeting of Indiana elected officials last week, NIPSCO President and COO Vince Parisi said the trees that downed power lines were not an issue in the utility\u2019s response to severe storms in August that resulted in power outages […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.justintimejackie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.justintimejackie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.justintimejackie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.justintimejackie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.justintimejackie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1818"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.justintimejackie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1820,"href":"http:\/\/www.justintimejackie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818\/revisions\/1820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.justintimejackie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.justintimejackie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.justintimejackie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.justintimejackie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}