PG&E defends its major tree work
An attorney for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. defended the company’s tree trimming to a federal judge Tuesday, describing its efforts to prevent more wildfires by heavily clearing vegetation around power lines as necessary and unprecedented in reach, even while conceding some major flaws in the program.
PG&E admitted to U.S. District Judge William Alsup that its contractors have failed to cut or fell every tree that could collide with electrical equipment and ignite a fire, but the company blamed a lot of that on the broadly increased scope of the program. The PG&E lawyer also said the software that contractors use to track their vegetation management work does not always accurately show the location of power lines.
Alsup, who is overseeing PG&E’s probation from the 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline blast, set the San Francisco hearing because of a recent critical report from the company’s courtappointed monitor. In the report, the monitor said his team found PG&E contractors had overlooked “numerous trees” and identified “substantial recordkeeping issues related to
the Company’s preinspection and tree work processes.”
PG&E has not disputed the monitor’s conclusions. In fact, the company said in an earlier written reply to the judge that the report was consistent with its own internal findings.
But Kevin Orsini, the lawyer for the company, told Alsup that shortfalls should be expected, given that the company has been trying to “do a level of work that, to our knowledge, no other utility in the country is currently doing or has ever done before” in regard to tree trimming.
PG&E’s treetrimming workforce, which is mostly made up of contractors, numbers 4,500 people — more than the number of employees on the gas side of the business, according to Bill Johnson, CEO of the utility’s parent company PG&E Corp.
Those workers are tasked with executing a program that includes cutting vegetation so it is 12 feet from power lines horizontally — and fully clear above any conductors within 4 feet — and removing any trees that an analysis determines could fall on a line, not just those that are dead or dying.
“This is just fundamentally different from what these type of workers have ever done before,” Orsini said. “It’s just not common practice to go out there and cut down these healthy trees.”
The company says it is now making its power line inspectors take a “competency test” to ensure they are proficient in the mandates of the tougher vegetation program.
PG&E is also providing contractors more detailed training on how to properly use the software at the heart of the recordkeeping problems flagged by the monitor’s team. Some workers were entering incorrect locations or descriptions into the software and some did not enter any data, according to the monitor’s report.
Additionally, the software is “not always 100% accurate” about the location of PG&E’s lines, Orsini said to the judge, and “sometimes the line can be off by 100 feet or so.” The issue has to do with PG&E’s recordkeeping. Part of the problem, for example, stems from the company’s transition from paper records to digital ones, he said, stressing that PG&E is taking steps to improve the technology.
The monitor, Mark Filip, told Alsup the imprecise aspects of the technology means PG&E will overlook work that needs to be done. But Filip reflected confidence that the company is receptive to the concerns raised by his team.
“I do think these people are working hard,” Filip said, though added that “the results need to improve and get better.”
Alsup asked Orsini if anyone working on the tree trimming program had intentionally falsified records. Orsini said there was at “at least one instance where a false record was entered,” and while he wasn’t sure if it was intentional, it was “sufficiently egregious” that the contractor was barred from working on any more PG&E projects.
He didn’t offer any more details. Alsup said he wants the company to tell its contractors about that incident and he wants to know about any future such instances, suggesting he could refer those matters to federal prosecutors.
“I think they should know that this is serious work,” Alsup said.
Ultimately, the judge said he does “appreciate what PG&E has done.”
“It’s not perfect yet, and it’s a work in progress, but thank you for your hard work,” Alsup said. “I appreciate the work the monitor has done to point out the shortfalls and ask the monitor to continue doing that. Stay on this until we get through this fire season.”
Johnson, the PG&E Corp. CEO, and Andrew Vesey, the newly installed CEO of the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. subsidiary, both attended the hearing.
Johnson told reporters that the company’s enhanced vegetation management program is a “tremendous effort involving a tremendous number of people.”
“And we’re learning as we go,” he said. “We’ve had to make some changes in our inspection and our work, but we agree with the monitor’s report, we find it very helpful and we are working hard at getting better every day.”
Alsup told PG&E to send him a letter detailing any fire ignitions of 10 acres or more that the company believed it has started this year. He indicated he would hold another hearing after fire season ends.