In June, The Sentinel Dispatch filed public records requests with utility regulators in every state that had publicly acknowledged a wildlife-related substation fire since March. Eleven states qualified.
Four provided counts. Seven cited an exemption for critical infrastructure security information and provided nothing.
The four disclosing states account for 89 confirmed intrusions between March 1 and August 1. If the seven withholding states have experienced intrusions at a comparable rate relative to substation count, the national figure would be somewhere near 240.
That is an estimate built on an assumption, and we flag it as such. It is also the only number available.
The letter
One of the seven withholding states, which we are not naming because the disclosure appears to have been inadvertent, attached the wrong document to its denial letter.
The attachment was a two-page internal summary. It listed intrusion counts by county for the first half of the year, and a single line at the bottom noting that the figures "exclude events where perimeter breach could not be distinguished from perimeter failure."
Asked to clarify what that exclusion covers, the agency said the document had been sent in error and asked that it be returned. We have declined, and have not published the counts.
"We do not comment on records that were not lawfully released."
A spokesperson for the state agency, in response to written questions
Requests remain pending in three of the seven withholding states. Two have been pending past their statutory response window.