The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1918-01-03
STATEMENT.
Users Of Electricity

Again we ofter apology for the In
terrupted and unreliable service dur.
ing December.
The natural and doubtless oft re-
peated question in your minds is.
What i the Light Company doing to
improve upon this unsatisfactory con-
dition, or, Is the situation due TO in
difference or neglect on their part?
We desire to say that we have been
working and striving. literally night
and day, TO restore proper service,
and far from being Indifferent or neg
lectful we have been and are, exceed
ingly anxious and worried because of
the seemingly endless chain of adverse
circumstances which has defeated our
best endeavors at all too frequent in
tervals during the past four months.
Engine and other underlying plant
trouble has been responsible for all
our difficulties The demands on the
plant this fall have been unprecedent-
ed and we were not prepared to meet
this with sufficient reserve machinery.
Consequently our existing plant ma
chinery has been overloaded and over.
worked, and without sufficient oppor-
tunity to make thorough repairs the
machinery has broken down and failed
us repeatedly in spite of our best eff
forts. One of the principal causes of
this months interruptions has been
the failure of one of the large engines
to opel ate properly and It has been
down on occasions several days at
time-in fact it is down ne this state
ment is being written and for three
days we have been unable to start it.
We telegraphed the factory for expert
engineers to assist us in getting it
back into shape. but their reply was
that they had 10 one to send now and
were uncertain when they could do so.
Meantime we can only keep trying,
which we are doing. but you can
gather from this instance some of the
problems with which we have to con-
tend. In the past few months we
have lost the services of two expert
enced engineers because of sickness
and navy service and we have thus
far been quite unable to replace them.
Since October we have accomplished
some things toward the installation Of
additional machinery. A new plant
addition about so by 60 feet has been
erected and enclosed, and foundations
excavated for two engines, and these
two engines are Immediately available
tor installation as soon as foundations
are ready for them. We have receiv-
ed 200 H. P. Gas Producer outfit
just few days ago. We have added
to our fuel storage capacity both coal
and oil We also installed a water
circulating system, the former system
failing US almost completely during
| the sudden extremely cold weather
early in the month. We expected to
have accomplished much more toward
getting additional machinery actually
into operation but our plans and eff
forts ended in disappointment. Many
how very difficult it is to accomplish
any new work during these times.
| We desire to make this statement
of fact and not merely an excuse for
our failures. We freely admit the
shortcomings of our service and regret
exceedingly the annoyance caused our
patrons. On the other hand we great
ly appreciate your forbearance under
the circumstances, and we ask you to
believe that we are working and try.
ing as hard as men can do to over
come our difficulties and to restore
the kind of service we all desire.
While blamsworthy and open to criti-
clam for our unpreparedness, never
theless your friendly attitude and CO.
operation. as, far as possible. will far
more surely help US attain the success
we are striving for than will censure
or hostile action of any character.
The cost to the Company has been ex-
tremely heavy, both in loss of revenue
and in the extraordinary expenditures
we are forced to make in order to
make good this business we have es-
tablished in the community. We are
endeavoring to obtain yet another
generating unit of large size. and it
is our purpose to continue our effo1ts
along these lines until all details of
the service subject to our control have
been literally safeguarded by proper
reserves of machinery or other devic-
es, and so avoid all recurrence of the
i present unhappy experiences.
Respectfully.
! SOUTH DAKOTA LIGHT &