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| Dominion's Logo |
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| Sistine Chapel |
Don’t you just love it when you open a bill and out pours a mess of marketing materials extolling you to buy a product in addition to paying your bill?
It’s clever, stuffing envelopes with fliers with products you wouldn’t otherwise buy.
It’s flattering that the company took the time and the money to offer me all these products to make my life, my health and my home so much better.
My most favorite company is Dominion Virginia Power, a subsidiary of Dominion Resources, a public company whose stock is bought and sold on the New York Stock Exchange every day.
My latest bill from the power guys included my bill, two fliers offering products and a newsletter, printed in color and showing a photograph of Dominion Virginia Power CEO, Paul Koonce.
Naturally, I wouldn’t want Dominion to pay for the marketing costs because they are offering me a chance to improve my life and help the environment.
So I will willingly pay my bill, which no doubt includes the costs of these marketing materials.
Update this to 2013.
The city that controls the water controls how our region contracts or expands.
Norfolk is that city.
It sells water wholesale to Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Portsmouth and the United States Navy.
Among the top buyers of Norfolk’s water at retail prices are Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, Old Dominion University, Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center and S.L. Nusbaum Realty Co.
Four non-profit organizations and one private company.
It’s clever, stuffing envelopes with fliers with products you wouldn’t otherwise buy.
It’s flattering that the company took the time and the money to offer me all these products to make my life, my health and my home so much better.
My most favorite company is Dominion Virginia Power, a subsidiary of Dominion Resources, a public company whose stock is bought and sold on the New York Stock Exchange every day.
My latest bill from the power guys included my bill, two fliers offering products and a newsletter, printed in color and showing a photograph of Dominion Virginia Power CEO, Paul Koonce.
Naturally, I wouldn’t want Dominion to pay for the marketing costs because they are offering me a chance to improve my life and help the environment.
So I will willingly pay my bill, which no doubt includes the costs of these marketing materials.
One flier offered me the chance to buy “whole house” electronic air filters for $295, including shipping.
When I have to replace the filters, I have the opportunity to buy 12 new filters from Dominion for $45 – shipping not included.
Who can pass up such a deal?
Another flier appealed to my altruistic bent to save the environment from dirty pollutants caused by fossil fuels, such as coal, much of which is burned – still – in many of Dominion’s power plants.
Dominion offered me two payment choices to buy renewable energy certificates, commonly known as RECs.
Dominion never said how buying these RECs benefits me, the customer.
But in the flier Dominion extols me to “sign up now to be part of Virginia’s renewable energy future.”
So I have to give it careful consideration, as I really want to save the environment.
But best of all is the homey missive from the CEO saying Dominion is on our own side, the customer, and taking steps to ensure reliability of service.
A sidebar chart tracks how Dominion’s service reliability has improved since 2004, despite the surfeit of storms that have hit the East Coast since then.
Best of all Dominion will place overhead wires underground “with the collaboration of communities.”
That’s corporate speak for “we are not going the bear the entire cost of burying wires underground.”
Of course, most municipalities can’t afford to bear even a reasonable portion of the cost, such as Norfolk, faced with a startling array of expenses.
According to one estimate, it would cost four times the amount to bury wires in Norfolk compared to burying wires in a new sub-division in Virginia Beach.
Dominion says it costs $2 million a mile to bury lines. Yet Dominion doesn’t say if that is the cost for a new sub-division or the overall average cost of installing wires.
But I really can’t see how technology has improved the transmission of electricity from my street to my home.
I admit I’m a layman. Yet I still see telephone poles, a relic of the past, strung with wires and transformers waiting to be martyred in the next storm.
Water Baron
If you missed it, Norfolk sold $43 million in water revenue bonds earlier this month.
Ho-hum. Boring. Can’t you think of anything better to write?
But “he who controls the spice controls the universe.”
The quote from the futuristic novel Dune was written by Frank Herbert as an allegory on the world’s battle for oil in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Who can pass up such a deal?
Another flier appealed to my altruistic bent to save the environment from dirty pollutants caused by fossil fuels, such as coal, much of which is burned – still – in many of Dominion’s power plants.
Dominion offered me two payment choices to buy renewable energy certificates, commonly known as RECs.
Dominion never said how buying these RECs benefits me, the customer.
But in the flier Dominion extols me to “sign up now to be part of Virginia’s renewable energy future.”
So I have to give it careful consideration, as I really want to save the environment.
But best of all is the homey missive from the CEO saying Dominion is on our own side, the customer, and taking steps to ensure reliability of service.
A sidebar chart tracks how Dominion’s service reliability has improved since 2004, despite the surfeit of storms that have hit the East Coast since then.
Best of all Dominion will place overhead wires underground “with the collaboration of communities.”
That’s corporate speak for “we are not going the bear the entire cost of burying wires underground.”
Of course, most municipalities can’t afford to bear even a reasonable portion of the cost, such as Norfolk, faced with a startling array of expenses.
According to one estimate, it would cost four times the amount to bury wires in Norfolk compared to burying wires in a new sub-division in Virginia Beach.
Dominion says it costs $2 million a mile to bury lines. Yet Dominion doesn’t say if that is the cost for a new sub-division or the overall average cost of installing wires.
But I really can’t see how technology has improved the transmission of electricity from my street to my home.
I admit I’m a layman. Yet I still see telephone poles, a relic of the past, strung with wires and transformers waiting to be martyred in the next storm.
Water Baron
If you missed it, Norfolk sold $43 million in water revenue bonds earlier this month.
Ho-hum. Boring. Can’t you think of anything better to write?
But “he who controls the spice controls the universe.”
The quote from the futuristic novel Dune was written by Frank Herbert as an allegory on the world’s battle for oil in the late 1960s and 1970s.
 |
| The charming Baron Harkonnen from Dune film |
Update this to 2013.
The city that controls the water controls how our region contracts or expands.
Norfolk is that city.
It sells water wholesale to Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Portsmouth and the United States Navy.
Among the top buyers of Norfolk’s water at retail prices are Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, Old Dominion University, Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center and S.L. Nusbaum Realty Co.
Four non-profit organizations and one private company.
.
Phillip, think of all those wonderful, high-paying jobs those helpful fliers create... Don't complain.
ReplyDeleteYou're right. I shouldn't complain. Too bad all those high-paying jobs aren't in Norfolk.
ReplyDeleteIncreasingly, transmission lines and overhead line materials are routed through areas of poor ground conditions, often for reasons of amenity. This results in the need for the use of special, generally larger, foundations.
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