Edison can avoid burying power lines

Norco seeks legislative help as regulator calls above-ground fire risks ‘less than significant’

State utility regulators on Thursday rejected Norco’s request to make Southern California Edison bury transmission lines for a long-awaited Riverside power project that will run along the Santa Ana River.

Norco is now eyeing a legislative fix. City manager Lori Sassoon said it’s working with Assemblyman

Bill Essayli, R-riverside, to introduce a bill that would suspend the power project until an updated environmental study is completed.

If that bill isn’t approved, the unanimous decision by the California Public Utilities Commission likely closes the door on the local chapter of a complicated debate that’s playing out in California, as a broad push to locate power lines below ground due to increasing wildfire risks clashes with rising electricity rates and a need to quickly add capacity to the state’s power grid.

The state approved Riverside’s $521 million transmission project four years ago to give the city a second connection to the regional electric grid. That plan includes adding steel poles and towers that would soar up to 180 feet as lines cut through the Hidden Valley Nature Center, where shorter aboveground power infrastructure already exists.

In October, Norco asked the commission to reconsider that decision, noting in its petition that wildfire risks and other conditions have changed in recent years. The city and its supporters, including a bipartisan group of elected officials, argued that those changes justify the added cost and work involved with putting the planned transmission lines underground.

“Since March of 2021, there has been a significant increase in the number of wildland fires within and around the city of Norco,” Rep. Ken Calvert, R-corona, told commissioners on a call during the commission meeting. “Installing new overhead projection for power transmission lines brings additional fire risks and does not make any sense for this fire-prone area.”

However, after the commission’s 3-0 vote to reject Norco’s petition, member Karen Douglas said the conditions Calvert and others have raised were already taken into consideration during environmental reviews and prior votes on the Riverside Transmission Reliability Project.

“We take our role in addressing the risk of utility-involved wildfire seriously,” Douglas said. And given requirements for Edi