Tag: SDG&E

San Diego Gas and Electric is seeking approval from the Public Utilities Commission to turn off the power to large sections of San Diego County during periods of high fire danger.

From 10news:

A plan to shut off power to prevent power lines from sparking a wildfire has SDG&E at odds with some water districts around the county.  It may force the water districts to buy generators to keep the water running.

“The power demand of the station is the equivalent of a small city,” said Gary Arant.

The Bettsworth station is the Valley Center Municipal Water District’s main pumping station.  It takes around 5 megawatts to power the facility.

“I can’t have my water system without power for 12, 18, 24 , 36 hours,” said Arant, the district’s general manager.

He is referring to SDG&E’s emergency power shut off plan.  The plan calls for power lines to be shut off during high wind and dry conditions to avoid sparking a fire.

“Our concern is, with the SDG&E plan, we’re going to need about 8 to 12 of these units just maintain the critical service,” Arant said.

If the power is shut off, Arant says he would need auxiliary generators at a cost of $2.8 million to keep water running for customers and firefighters.  But, Arant said negotiations with SDG&E have come to a halt.

“To have them unilaterally pull the information and pull the offers off the table was very disappointing,” Arant said.

He said the utility company had been willing to work with them on offsetting the costs of the generators among other agreements, but now they will have to go before the Public Utility Commission for arbitration.

“We’re assuming they’re going to seek permission through the PUC and they’re going to try to not compensate us for the extra cost,” said Arant.

San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E), whose powerlines have been identified by CalFire investigators as causing the devastating Witch and Rice fires that burned large areas of eastern San Diego County in 2007, have said they intend to sue 14 of their customers whose homes burned in the fires. More than 1,100 homes and 197,000 acres burned, but SDG&E claims that the homeowners “failed to maintain property in respect to brush clearance”. The power company’s strategy is a countersuit to offset the suits of their customers who lost their homes.

Some of the homeowners are understandably stunned by this development.

This is like, for instance, if someone had a vicious dog who escaped through an improperly maintained fence, then attacked you and caused serious injury. Could the dog owner sue you for not carrying a weapon so you could have fought off the dog just before it attacked you?

As Wildfire Today reported on January 25, there are a gazillion lawsuits related to these fires. which so far are keeping over 150 lawyers gainfully employed and involve $1 billion.

Attorneyatlaw.com has more details.

HERE is a link to a map of the Witch fire.

UPDATE: January 30 @ 2:03 MT

As we have written in the past, we are strong advocates of the Prepare, Stay, and Defend program, for less flammable building materials, for property owners to maintain a fire safe environment around their structures, and for firefighters not being forced into unsafe situations fighting fire at unprepared homes. But if it turns out to be the case, as it appears now, that the fire was caused by negligence of the power company, it is unconscionable for them to sue their customers whose homes would not have burned down if the power company had not started the fire.

The plan by San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) to turn off electricity to large portions of the county during periods of strong winds and low fuel moisture is being applauded by some and criticized by others. The company’s power lines have been blamed for starting numerous large fires over the last 40 years and they are probably very concerned about their liability and how it will affect their profits.

They have several options:

1. Reduce the chances that the power lines will start fires by ensuring that wooden poles, fuses and switches are in satisfactory condition, replacing some wooden poles with metal poles, putting some lines underground, improving their tree-trimming programs along the lines, and inspecting the lines more frequently.
2. Implement the preemptive power outage program during Santa Ana wind events. This risks receiving heavy criticism from their customers who need power for medical equipment, traffic lights, telephones, garage door openers, and water systems. Convince tens of thousands of individuals, companies, and agencies to purchase and install emergency backup power systems, or have SDG&E pay for the systems. Option #2 may result in them getting sued.
3. Do nothing, and continue to have their power lines start fires. They will continue to get sued if they choose this option.

As far as we know, this is an unprecedented plan, turning off power to large areas because the lines may start a fire during strong winds. They may be hoping that by scaring the public about losing their power, the state legislature will exempt the company from liability.

The scare-the-public tactic works for the Bush administration. It may work for SDG&E.