Rockville Site Identified as Risk for Dangerous, Invisible High Voltage Contact

An area near Rockville’s Courthouse Square is one of three places in Montgomery County identified as a contact voltage risk zone, created when old, bad wires underground lead to stray voltage and pose an invisible risk to the public.

Pepco identified 69 acres near Courthouse Square, 190 acres in the Bethesda Business District and 186 acres in downtown Silver Spring, The Gazette reports.

The issue was brought to light last week by a family of a former Baltimore Colts player seeking more transparency after their daughter was electrocuted in 2006 while stretching on a fence during a church softball league game in Baltimore.

On Wednesday, Nancy Green and former Baltimore Colts player Anthony “Bubba” Green, were joined by power regulation advocates who urged the Public Service Commission to make available reports detailing contact voltage incidents like the one that killed the Greens’ daughter Deanna Camille Green.

Anthony and Nancy Green recounted what happened that day in an emotional post at Huffington Post. They said after their daughter died, they’ve focused their energy into educating the public about contact risk zones.

They write:

“Electricity is a silent killer. Unless you've seen your child electrocuted right before your eyes, you can never know how I feel. You can never understand what I experienced that horrific day, everyday, and for all the days to come. No one can know of my helplessness. No one can understand how worthless I felt as a mother that night when I failed to protect my daughter.”

Deanna Green’s death spurred the Deanna Camille Green Act of 2012, which states that all power companies in the state must identify contact voltage risk zones.

A spokeswoman for Pepco told Bethesda Now in a statement that the company was in full compliance with the PSC’s contact voltage rules. Bethesda Now posted a copy of a letter Pepco sent to the PSC delineating contact voltage risk zones in Montgomery County.

PowerUpMontCo founder Abbe Milstein said the state needs to toughen its contact voltage rules and said the reports should be made available online, Bethesda Now reports.