CBPU to upgrade utility system security
COLDWATER — The Coldwater Board of Public Utility board on Wednesday authorized spending $163,775 to upgrade security around its utility operations.
City Information Technology director Pat Pool told the board Feb. 1 that “due to increasing nationwide trends of vandalism, theft and physical attacks on key electrical grid infrastructure, I am proposing security upgrades for the five electrical substations” in the service area.
“At the substations, we don't have any coverage on those now,” Pool said.
Because of the dangers around the substations, CBPU crews will handle the wiring for the services. He did not have the amount the city will save by doing the work.
The utility will pay half the cost, or $16,248, to upgrade security systems and cameras at the Brown Municipal Building. City council approved the other half last week.
Most of the nine cameras on the municipal building at 1 Grand St. are original to the 2002 construction and are degraded.
The original security camera layout lacks coverage in several key areas, including most of the exterior of the building, the basement and the second floor.
The new city hall system includes 18 new high-resolution cameras. CBPU will monitor its locations with 50 new high-resolution cameras.
Pool said it’s impossible to monitor these in real time, although there is a system.
“It's not likely anybody's going to notice because there's just too many of them. They're mostly for evidentiary purposes or to see if something's going on,” Pool explained.
There are motion sensors that activate to call attention to the activity.
“There are programs we tell them what to watch for,” he said.
Animals inside substations, for example, can short out power lines and cause blackouts — electrocuting themselves in the process.
The system also could account for human threats.
“If you had an active shooter in the building, we could allow the police or 911 access to see those cameras so that they could see what's going on as they bring their folks in,” Pool said.
Over the past year, so-called First Amendment Auditors with video cameras went around and inside the city’s buildings, testing public access.
“We may have had somebody monitoring where they were wandering around,” he said.
Part of the project will also set up secured access at the city water plant and service center at Waterworks Park. CBPU will limit the number of entry doors that can be used.
“Michigan EGLE recently recommended the garage doors at the Water Treatment Plant need to be better secured, preferably behind fencing,” Pool said. This is to guarantee the city water system cannot be tampered with at the source.
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All of the new access systems are compatible with the current system. Because of that, Lakeland Electronics was the low or only bidder.
Money for the upgrades was budgeted by CBPU and the city in the 2022-23 spending plan.
— Contact Don Reid: dReid@Gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter: @DReidTDR.
This article originally appeared on Coldwater Daily Reporter: Coldwater utility board to upgrade security after vandalism, threats
