With wildfire season already raging this year, state regulators have fined PG&E for allegedly mishandling its backlog of 170,000 power line repairs – a logjam the utility acknowledges will continue until at least 2029.
Cal Fire blamed the 570-acre Old Fire in May 2022 on two PG&E power lines hitting each other. No one was injured or structures burned in the fire. While state Public Utilities Commission safety regulators agreed that the line contact amounted to a regulatory violation, they identified several other problems in imposing a total fine of $800,000.
Specifically, they identified four separate power poles near the fire origin as having not been replaced – despite being flagged as at-risk by PG&E’s inspectors well before the fire. The underlying pattern of deferred and delayed maintenance, regulators concluded, “fundamentally undermines its ability to provide safe and reliable service.’’
Ken Buske, an electrical engineer who has probed more than 1,000 fires, reviewed state regulators’ findings for NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit. He said he was left particularly concerned by one photo of an at-risk pole that PG&E had opted to delay replacing.
“I think a second grader can look at a pole that’s been woodpecker riddled and see that this pole was compromised,” Buske said.
Another compromised pole, he said, was also clearly damaged yet had been left standing for more than three years after first being flagged by inspectors for replacement.
“I think PG&E just got in the habit of putting everything off, no matter how bad it looked,” Buske said, adding that the report makes him question whether PG&E will be able to safely handle the current backlog of 170,000 outstanding repairs.
“As an engineer I don’t jump up and down,’’ he said, “but perhaps this will be the time to jump up and down and say how bad the PG&E practice really is.”
While PG&E paid the $800,000 fine, it said that doesn’t mean it agrees with all the findings. The company also said it is acting “aggressively” to end the maintenance backlog by 2029 -- by combining repair jobs, increasing inspections, and shutting off power at the first sign of trouble.
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“PG&E’s wildfire prevention work is making our system safer and more resilient while positioning us to better serve our customers in the short and long term and respond to our state’s evolving climate challenges,” it said in a statement.
But Marc Noel, the Butte County prosecutor whose office convicted the utility on 84 manslaughter counts in the 2018 Camp Fire, says he still wonders if PG&E can catch up in time to avoid another calamity blamed on delayed maintenance.
“It’s always a concern that the next major fire is going to be caused by work that hasn’t been done,” Noel said.
To make sure the company is living up to its maintenance commitments, the Butte County district attorney has joined with several other fire ravaged counties in enlisting an independent monitor to track the utility’s efforts.
So far, Noel said that the results are encouraging.
“I’m a hundred percent sure that it’s making a difference,” Noel said, “but I can’t say I’m 100 percent sure that we are catching everything.”
