Letter: Power Trip

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Letter to the Editor

Last weekend’s repeat power outage have many asking: why not put the lines underground?

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has already ruled out undergrounding in fire-risk areas. In its infinite reasoning, they say it’s unfair for ratepayers in the rest of the state to pay for underground lines in fire-risk places like Malibu.

Worse, the CPUC is about to raise Southern California Edison (SCE) rates significantly to pay for a rebuild of their system. This is despite the fact that CPUC rules require the overhead poles to be kept in good condition. Years of poor maintenance, and the lucrative sale of pole capacity for heavy communications cables and antenna, have left 22% of the SCE poles out of safety tolerances.

And get this stupidity: the CPUC does not have a way for a city or assessment district to sequester the money that is going to put in new overhead lines and divert it to undergrounding them. If Malibu wanted to take the SCE pole replacement money and use it to help pay for underground lines, there is no way to do that.

I am fighting in San Francisco for CPUC rules; distribution lines should be undergrounded in fire-risk districts where local people decide to pay the added cost, if any.

SCE will soon spend millions and millions on new poles in Malibu. At some point, it becomes more economical to bury them.

Economists, engineers and lawyers are needed to present our side of the story. I face the hostile utilities on one side, hidebound CPUC staff on another, and “consumer advocates” on the third, who fight spending any spending on safety because rates will go up and that cannot be had.

Hans Laetz