Monitor: PG& E treetrimming program flawed
The federal monitor overseeing Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has questioned whether the company’s execution of courtsupervised treetrimming was more focused on meeting numerical targets than maximizing safety.
When PG& E trimmed trees around power lines last year, it often did not focus on the equipment most likely to start wildfires, according to a new letter the monitor submitted to a federal judge. The utility performed most of its 2019 enhanced vegetation management program in “relatively lowrisk portions” of high firethreat areas, the monitor wrote.
The PG& E program was intended to be an
expanded effort to remove trees and branches that could collide with power lines and start catastrophic wildfires — a scenario that has repeatedly occurred since 2015, with deadly consequences in some cases. That risk has also prompted PG& E to turn off some power lines as a preventive measure during windstorms, a step the company is poised to repeat this week in parts of the Bay Area.
The monitor’s letter further states that, as of Aug. 31, PG& E had still not climbed nearly 1,000 highvoltage electric towers to check for equipment that could break and start major fires — another way that the company has been responsible for fires before.
The monitor, Mark Filip, sent his letter to U. S. District Judge William Alsup, who on Tuesday ordered PG& E to respond by Nov. 3 at noon. Filip was appointed in 2017 to oversee the company, which was placed under probation following its convictions on charges related to the 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion.
PG& E is also under investigation for possibly causing the deadly Zogg Fire in Shasta County this year. Its bankruptcy case prompted by responsibility for many other fires was resolved several months ago.
The company’s vegetation program was supposed to emphasize the power lines most likely to start devastating fires, such that the company would achieve the most risk reduction sooner rather than later, Filip’s letter said.
But Filip found that about 59% of PG& E’s enhanced vegetation work last year occurred outside the top 100 electric circuits with the most concerning scores on the company’s own risk model.
“Of course, operational considerations may force some deviations from any risk model or related plan informed by that model, but in this case, the severity of the deviations strongly suggest that the Company prioritized the achievement of ( enhanced vegetation management) mileage targets over the most meaningful wildfire risk reduction,” Filip wrote.
As PG& E was racing to meet its endofyear vegetation management goals late last year, Filip’s team found “fewer and fewer trees — and, at times, no trees at all” along miles of power lines that the company had counted toward its metrics, the letter said. The implication is that PG& E was counting stretches of power line with few or no trees to trim in its treetrimming goals.
Through November 2019, 92% of the power line miles that counted toward the company’s enhanced vegetation management metrics did not actually require any tree trimming work, the letter said. The figure improved by the end of the year, falling to 77%, and preliminary data through September indicates that only 57% of the miles this year did not require tree trimming work, Filip said in the letter.
Additionally, PG& E was supposed to climb 967 transmission structures for detailed fire safety inspections by Aug. 31 this year, but that did not happen on time, according to the letter. Transmission lines are the heavyduty, highvoltage power lines often supported by huge lattice steel towers — and they were responsible for major fires in 2018 and 2019.
PG& E had instead conducted 1,000 such climbing inspections outside of highthreat areas by Aug. 31, a flaw that Filip blamed on “human error, lack of oversight, miscommunications, and failure to appropriately escalate matters.” PG& E is now trying to finish the needed inspections by Thanksgiving, he said.
In a statement, PG& E said it “shares the court’s focus on safety and recognizes that we must take a leading role in reducing the risk of wildfire throughout Northern and Central California.” The company said it was aware of the letter from Filip and would respond by Alsup’s Nov. 3 deadline.