LA Times Discovers Power Poles Are Not Inspected In California – Duh
Written by 991KBU on January 28, 2019
Power poles in California are virtually unregulated ….
Power line failures have caused more than 2 thousand fires in the last three years.
Those have killed more than 100 Californians … four of them in Malibu.
And the state of California does almost nothing to inspect power poles.
The Los Angeles Times has a front page article today … that tells a story that has been preached by a handful of activists for years.
Almost no one enforces power pole safety in California.
Only 19 people work for the California Public Utilities Commission … to conduct on-the-ground preventive safety audits and spot checks.
There are 4.2 million utility poles throughout the state.
The Times reports that the CPUC president has admitted to the state legislature that poles are not inspected the way rail lines and other utilities are.
CPUC President Michael Picker told state legislators last year that the commission is primarily an economic regulator … with its central focus of making sure companies provide energy to consumers at reasonable rates.
Not safety.
The Times reports the chief regulator told lawmakers the agency had neither the technology … nor the number of people … to ensure safety compliance on its own.
Legislators said they were stunned to hear that from the state’s chief power line safety officer.
And they are beginning to talk about rethinking the regulatory system.
Teh Times notes that the CPUC has never … not once … fined an electrical utility company for failing to meet safety standards before a wildfire strikes.
Instead, the agency fines the utilities for violations after investigations into fires find wrongdoing — and the process can drag on for years.
After the 2007 power pole fire destroyed homes in Malibu Canyon … it took 8 years for the CPUC to fine Southern California Edison and the cell phone companies … they were find 67 million dollars for operating overloaded poles.
That settlement included a survey of Southern California Edison poles … which found that 50 percent of its poles in SCE’s high fire risk areas were overloaded.
The poles in Malibu were largely fixed … as a result of the Malibu Canyon fire settlement.
Two thousand poles were replaced … andMalibu pole failures and fires have dropped significantly.
Not totally … but significantly.
But fires from over the hill … like the Woolsey Fire … are from outside the state’s Malibu Special Enforcement Protocol area.
And its fires from over the hill that have proved disastrous to Malibu.
We have a link to the L A Times article at the KBUU website.
