“This fire could have been avoided.” How California utilities remove old power cords

The abandoned wire suspected of igniting the Eaton fire may have been removed, according to a rule proposed by state Utility Commission committee staff, but the statute was weakened under opposition from Southern California Edison and other utilities, according to records and interviews.

State regulators have long known that old transmission lines could trigger wildfires, and in 2001 a safety rule would force Edison and other power companies to remove abandoned lines unless they can prove they will use them in the future.

Among the opposition to the utility, the U.S. committee has studied the proposal for several years and finally watered it to keep the old line unchanged until executives decide to “ditch forever.”

One of the Mesa-Silma lines of Edison, who last seen service during the Vietnam War, was dozens of litigation centers claiming it ignited the devastating Eaton fire on January 7.

Edison said the main theory about the fire cause is that the line above the century has rebooted in some way, creating an arc that triggers wildfires. The investigation continues.

Electrical engineer Raffy Stepanian, who is part of the committee’s security team, proposed the 2001 rule to revoke abandoned lines.

“We have a lot of pressure to agree to utilities,” Stepanian said, adding that utilities “almost wrote these rules.”

Stepanian is now retired from the committee and lives in Altadena. His house survived, but the house adjacent to his property was destroyed.

“This fire could have been avoided,” he said.

Edison answered the New York Times question, saying the company kept the Mesa-Sylmar transmission line in place because it thought it might be needed in the future. It transported the 1971 electricity for the last time.

“We still have these inactive lines because we have a very reasonable opportunity to use them in the future,” said Shinjini Menon, senior vice president of system planning and engineering at Edison.

Menon said the company checked and kept the dormant line to ensure it was safe.

Commission Chairman Loretta Lynch said when she proposed the change in 2001 that she remembered security officers coming to her and explained why the rules needed to be strengthened. But trying to meet the boycott of utility executives, she said.

Ultimately, the committee allowed utilities to debate rules at dozens of workshops over two years.

The weakened proposal was approved in 2005, less than two weeks after Lynch’s term expired. Lynch’s departure left only three, a five-person committee chaired by Michael Peevey, former president of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California.

“People who were trying to improve safety entered the back room with a group of industry players, and what happened was the final decision, cutting safety regulations,” Lynch said.

Peevey admitted in an interview this week that utilities have repeatedly inspired some of the state’s largest wildfires after 20 years, and the commission’s actions may be different.

“If we knew what we knew now, maybe we would come to different conclusions,” he said.

Other commissioners who approved the rule were Susan Kennedy, former chief of staff for former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and former Governor Jerry Brown’s attorney and cousin Geoffrey Brown. Brown said he doesn’t remember the details of the vote. Kennedy did not comment immediately.

In the years since the Commission’s decision in 2005, abandoned power lines continue to pose a threat, with hundreds of miles of unused transmission lines passing through California like spider webs.

In 2019, investigators tracked Kincade Fire in Sonoma County, which destroyed 374 homes and other buildings and brought them into a abandoned line owned by Pacific Gas & Electric.

Following the Eaton Fire, PUC executive director Rachel Peterson was called to the General Assembly Utilities and Energy Commission to address how the agency oversees the power lines.

“If we want to know where all the inactive lines are, is there a place where we can get this information?” asked the convener Rhodesia Ratio (D-Tracy).

“Not as of today until today,” Peterson replied. “I think, part of the reason is that the service territory is so large and there are so many parts for the equipment that a registry for a particular element may or may not exist. But, let’s take it back and look at it.”

“Is there a timeline to require the removal of abandoned lines?” asked Congresswoman Pilar Schiavo (D-Santa Clarita).

“There is no timetable,” Peterson replied.

Commission spokesman Terrie Prosper wrote in an email that the commission wants these companies to check and safely maintain dormant lines just like those who are full of energy.

“Ask a utility to remove power lines too early… would be shortsighted and could significantly raise bills for utility customers,” Prosper wrote, refusing to let officials be interviewed.

Edison said earlier this year that unused transmission lines in Eaton Canyon may have been initiated by induction, a process that creates a magnetic field near the live wires that cause dormant lines to be electrified.

The company has built two transmission lines parallel to the dormant countertop line. They are full of energy when the video captures the Eaton fire under the Mesa-Silma Transmission Tower.

After the 2019 Kincade Fire, PG&E said it has agreed to the committee to remove the 262-mile route that has not been used in the future. The company said it will prioritize those with high risk of induction.

“Under the right conditions, a failed idle facility can pose a huge wildfire and safety risk,” PG&E in Its plan Remove lines.

Edison said it has 465 miles of idle transmission lines on its territory. Edison spokesman Kathleen Dunleavy said the company could not release the location of the lines because it was considered confidential.

How to define “deprecated”

For a long time, national utility rules had to remove the “permanent abandonment” routes so as not to become public nuisance or harm to life or property.”

But utility and committee safety personnel sometimes disagree with abandoned lines.

In 2001, when the Commission and its staff proposed strengthening the rules, Edison questioned the agency’s discovery that it failed to remove the wires in the demolished Lancaster house to violate it. According to the commission documents, an Edison said someone who tried to steal the device climbed onto the pole and was electrocuted.

Edison told security personnel it had an open order requiring the service to be reinstalled to the property and believed it had not been abandoned. According to the committee’s investigation into the death, staff later found that there was no such work order.

To strengthen the rules, the Commission stated in its January 2001 order that it defines the permanent abandonment line as “otherwise the owner can prove with proper documentation” and how it will be used in the future.

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Ultimately, the committee’s administrative law judge allowed a 50-day workshop over a two-year period. The judge also allowed Edison and other utilities to pay $180,000 to select and hire consultants to facilitate the workshop, according to committee documents.

According to the committee’s documents, the purpose of the workshop was to “collect the views of the parties and try to narrow the differences”.

At the workshop, security personnel from one or two committees defended the proposal when they heard comments from dozens of employees at the power and telecommunications companies, according to a report from the utility industry website.

The two companies not only want to debate the rules proposed by the committee. The companies recommend 50 other changes to security rules, including some that will significantly weaken them, the documents show.

Former committee chairman Lynch called the workshop “the worst way to do the facts needed to ensure safety” and said the utilities paid coordinator has “unheard of” power in drafting the committee’s final decision.

In the final wording, disappearing from the proposal is any requirement for how the utility plans to use the dormant line in the future. Instead, the language modified the rule to define permanently abandoned lines as “those used by their owners that have no foreseeable futures”.

With this definition, if executives think they may be used in the future, the utility may keep its old unused lines indefinitely.

Lynch said the committee’s vote “distorted the entire intention” and aimed at strengthening the rules. Instead, the committee’s final decision reduced safety requirements.

“This is very O’William,” she said. “Go up.”

In a July interview, Connor Flanigan, managing director of regulatory operations for Edison, noted that committee staff have the right to block company proposals at workshops open to the public.

“When the committee holds these procedures, they try to be very transparent,” he said.

Documents outlining the final decision of the committee include quotes from Edison executives praised the workshop process.

“Like most political parties, SCE has achieved some but not all rules that have changed its requirements,” executives said.