PG&E power lines’ role must be fully explored
Confronted by two state investigations, a roiling stock price and circling lawyers, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is facing its deepest crisis ever. Its wind-whipped power lines, stretching through miles of North Bay backcountry, may be the cause of one of California’s worst wildfires, blamed for at least 42 deaths and 5,200 lost homes.
It could be more than accidental. Electric lines running near combustible brush come with a responsibility for safety and prudent care. PG&E is required to trim back vegetation and monitor its poles, lines and equipment to make sure wildfires don’t result. Billions in fines and damages could result from a half-dozen major fires that spread across four counties for nearly two weeks.
The utility’s track record isn’t encouraging. While it spends upward of $400 million per year on brush trimming, it nearly doubled that sum to settle legal bills and fines stemming from the Butte Fire two years ago. In that case, it was found at fault for failing to whack back growth that caught fire from a snapped electric line. That fire scorched more than 70,000 acres, killed two people and burned more than 900 homes in Amador and Calaveras counties.
A direct link to the North Bay fires is far from clear at such an early stage. The two state inquiries by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the state Public Utilities Commission will take months and will weigh numerous factors including weather, utility records and local factors. Already the utility is arguing a “stuff happens” explanation: Supercharged winds on a warm night primed tinder-dry hillside for the slightest spark, no matter how well maintained the power lines were. Other sources alongside roads where PG&E lines run, such as car exhaust, tossed cigarettes or an untended campfire, could also be the culprit.
But other comments from both the utility’s top executive and the PUC head aren’t encouraging. The public deserves a full explanation of the fire’s origin and who may be responsible, not speculation about related issues that can distract attention from learning what happened.
In discussing the aftermath of the fires with Chronicle reporter David Baker, PG&E CEO Geisha Williams attributed the fierceness of the multiple fires to climate change and the state’s hot, dry summer. “When you think about all these things together, you have to ask yourself, ‘What are the right climate strategies we need?’ ” she said. “It’s not, ‘Oh, we need to trim more trees.’ ”
Sorry, but the rules require that the utility may need to trim more trees, climate change or not. The perils of rising temperatures are real enough, but PG&E has an immediate obligation to make sure its power network operates safely, especially in challenging conditions.
Michael Picker, president of the state Public Utilities Commission, is mulling the costs and benefits of enhanced power line regulations, now being talked up in the wake of the wildfires. Metal poles, wider growth-free zones and extra oversight all come with higher costs that will land on customer bills, he noted. City dwellers may not want to pay for rural power service upgrades.
That may be true, but for now, the commission needs to enforce the rules already on the books and not wait to impose fines after a disaster.
California is entering a new era marked by a harsher climate and need for added protections. But it already has baseline rules and protections that should be enforced. The still-smoldering wildfires should be investigated to see how well those guidelines were followed by the state’s major utility.