Without Consent: Landowners Battle PG&E’s ‘Moonscaping’

Katherine Cole mourns her felled blue oak, August 13.

Katharine Cole mourns her felled blue oak. [Photo by Sarah Reith, August 13]

“PG&E almost burnt us down, and now they’re moonscaping. This is a timber harvest plan without a plan.” That’s how Mendocino County Supervisor Ted Williams described the utility’s Enhanced Vegetation Management (EVM) program last month, after community members called in to a Board of Supervisors meeting to express their alarm over PG&E’s plans to cut down dozens of second-growth redwood trees along a power line that runs through a county-owned park just outside Boonville. Residents of a number of northern California counties, including Humboldt and Mendocino, are outraged over PG&E’s tree removal on their easements through private land. Last month, Harry Vaughn, a landowner just outside Miranda, was chagrined when PG&E crews marked almost 700 trees on a property that’s been under his family’s stewardship for generations.

The Friends of Faulkner Park, a group centered near Boonville, in Mendocino County, is trying to convince PG&E to bury the powerline in the road that bisects the beloved local hangout. Williams has taken up the cause, calling a community meeting in the park with local company representatives and extracting a promise not to cut any trees there for the rest of the year. PG&E Government Liaison Alison Talbot added that the company would collaborate with the county in the new year, but was careful not to say that the work would be contingent on consent.

Redwoods are not on the list of this region’s risky trees in PG&E’s wildfire mitigation plan, but the Boonville community is trying to avoid what happened to Katharine Cole in an unincorporated area of rolling hills and oak savannah in southern Mendocino County.

In August, Cole, who lives near Hopland, said that PG&E had told her about a year and a half ago that the company would be clearing more space than usual around the lines that run through her property. She said she was told that crews would clear out brush that had been killed in the River fire, which licked the edges of her pasture; that she would get a questionnaire about what she wanted to have done with the wood; and that she would be told when contractors were coming. 

The questionnaire and notice never arrived, though the crews did. “Basically, I’m looking at a war zone here,” she said, looking out over the pasture through a haze of smoke from the Dixie fire. Missing from the landscape were about two dozen oak, madrone and manzanita that crews had cleared from PG&E’s easement. 

She is most upset about an 80-foot tall blue oak, another species that is not on the list of high-risk trees in PG&E’s wildfire mitigation plan.  “I had a good oak tree,” she reminisced about the day contractors came to her land; “and I came home, and I’m going to show you what’s left of it — not only they take it down, but then they strewn it all over the field.” The crews chipped up the small-diameter branches and left the chips on the ground. This makes it more difficult to reseed the pasture and diminishes the value of the land, which she leases to her neighbor, a cattle rancher. “I’m telling you, the day after it came down, that night, there were at least 16 coyotes out here, and I just was crying my eyes out, because they were mourning this tree…I mean, couldn’t they have trimmed it. Couldn’t they have done something else. And now I need to get it out of the field.”

In the wake of catastrophic wildfires, PG&E has paid out millions of dollars in settlement funds. In 2016, after convictions related to the 2010 explosion of a gas pipeline in San Bruno, the company entered a five-year criminal probation, overseen by a federal judge. At least 108 people have died in fires caused by PG&E’s grid failures, according to an order modifying the conditions of that probation. The order, written by Judge William Alsup of the Northern California United States District Court in April of 2020, specifies that “PG&E must fully comply  with the specific targets and metrics set forth in its wildfire mitigation plan, including with respect to enhanced vegetation management.”

The company’s wildfire mitigation plan and the judge’s order cite many of the same laws, especially the California Public Resource Code and General Order 95, the California Public Utilities Commission’s regulations about electric utilities. The utilities write their own wildfire mitigation plans and then submit them to the CPUC for approval. PG&E’s plan states that its EVM (Enhanced Vegetation Management) program, which is key to reducing wildfire risk, includes, “in some cases, trimming beyond 12 ft depending on tree growth rates, among other factors…PG&E has determined that in certain circumstances it is prudent to exceed” previous guidance that prescribes a four-foot clearance from power lines. And Public Resource Code 4295 gives the utility full discretion to determine the clearance, notwithstanding other sections of the code, land ownership, or permission from the landowner. This is limited to the easement, and the utility is not exempt from liability for removing vegetation outside the easement.

The policy has led to the removal of thousands of healthy trees much further than a dozen feet from power lines, often with notification that is low on details or outright confusing.

Paul Putter's homestead off of Orr Springs Road on August 7, the day crews removed more than 32 trees from his property.

Paul Putter’s homestead off of Orr Springs Road on August 7, the day crews removed more than 32 trees from his property.

Katharine Cole is not the only one who feels misled. Homesteader Paul Putter signed a contract-like document from PG&E two months before crews showed up on his property on Greenfield Ranch, just off of Orr Springs Road in Mendocino County. The document had a handwritten number 32 on a line after the words “Tree Quantity,” which led Putter to believe that 32 trees would be removed. But on a hot August afternoon, crews had already felled well over 32 trees about a hundred feet away from the power lines. They were feeding small-diameter branches into a chipper as they went along and pouring larger slash into a big red dumpster. 

“I think I might have signed something without really understanding what the full implication of it was,” Putter acknowledged, over the roar of heavy equipment. “It just didn’t register, what was going to happen.” 

Is it legal?

“The name of the game, if you’re a large regulated entity, is make the regulators approve your plan.” That’s according to Steve Weissman, a former CPUC administrative law judge who also created and directed the Energy Law Program at the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy. He noted that, although local governments need to perform an environmental review to change their general plans (which are how jurisdictions determine growth strategies and resource protection), the utilities’ wildfire mitigation plans are simply not subject to environmental review. He explained that the regulatory agency’s approval of its wildfire mitigation plan protects PG&E from liability. And if another state agency prevents the company from carrying out its state-approved work, that’s protection from liability, too. 

“More than anything else,”said Weissman, “PG&E is concerned about liability for the next fire…if CalFire enjoins them, they can bank on that.”

Slash and debris in Rattlesnake Creek, HRSP

Slash and debris in Rattlesnake Creek, Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

Most of the work is done without permits, though PG&E spokeswoman Deanna Contreras said that work in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park was done “in partnership” with the California Department of Parks and Recreation, following an internal environmental review. (Unlike a timber harvest plan, the company’s review is not subject to public scrutiny.) Contreras contended that, “Trees may appear to be healthy and still have defects that create a risk of falling into our power lines.” Activists have been in the park for months, slowing the cutting in the park by hanging out too close to the fallers for them to work safely. They believe more sophisticated management strategies are in order, and question why many healthy-seeming trees downhill of the power lines have been removed.

Contreras explained the lack of permits by asserting that, “Much of PG&E’s maintenance work, including this enhanced vegetation safety work, does not result in the type of impacts that would trigger discretionary environmental permit requirements, nor does it require utility exemptions.”

Logging is subject to the California Public Resource Code and the Forest Practice Rules, which are administered by Cal Fire. Richard Sampson, the Division Chief of the Cal Fire unit in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, has written eight notices of violation to PG&E and the licensed timber operators it hires to perform EVM work in his jurisdiction. He contends that the work meets the definition of a timber operation on Timberland and that, as such, the company needs to apply to his agency for permits, which it has done in the past. In October of 2020, he wrote, “Over the past 2 years, PG&E has prepared Utility Right of Way Conversion exemption permits (14 CCR 1104.1 c)) for this type of work…2 were filed in this unit prior to June 2020.” He also wrote that the company was violating numerous environmental rules, including leaving slash and debris in watercourses; failing to maintain roads during the winter operating period to control sediment; and that he had observed evidence of large tracked vehicles crossing a creek. “Unfortunately, as no permits are in place, we have no way to associate each violation to the appropriate LTO (licensed timber operator),” he wrote in a letter to PG&E managers and the three LTOs he had seen operating in the area.

PG&E contested all of it, including the definitions of the terms “timber operations” and “Timberland.” Michael Ritter, PG&E’s Senior Director of Vegetation Management Operations, wrote to Sampson in November of 2020 that the company believes Cal Fire’s interpretations of the code “are overreaching and have interfered with or substantially impeded the ability of PG&E to complete important public safety work in a timely manner.” He argued that because the land beneath the power lines is not available for growing a crop of trees, it does not meet the definition of Timberland as outlined in the code. “(C)onsequently, PG&E’s actions to maintain its existing rights of way cannot reasonably represent Timber Operations,” he concluded. He added that the company was investigating the allegations of its failures to comply with “environmental or other regulatory obligations.” 

To Kellen Kaiser, the regulations look a little unevenly applied. Kaiser owns the cattle that graze on her neighbor Katharine Cole’s land in Hopland. She has been holding off tree crews with what appears to be sheer force of personality, arguing with supervisors and insisting on an explanation for every marked tree.

“I was trying to explain to them, you guys are ruining my pastures,” she recalled. “My pastures run along this corridor you are cutting. And you are cutting down the things that are, you know, spaces for my cattle to get shade, which is going to affect their water source, and then you’re just scattering wood all over where they’re going to lay down. And their answer is always like, well, that’s our policy…They always seem very surprised that I am not acquiescent about the whole situation.” It’s hard for her not to see it through the lens of gender, “because it’s just all of these men, wandering through the property, really acting in these problematic ways.”

As a rancher with a salmon-bearing stream running through her land, she hears a lot about how she’s supposed to protect the waterway. But in August, almost every tree along the creekbed was marked, including one that was providing shade to a final puddle in the drought-stricken stream. Without water in the creek, Kaiser spends hours each day, following her herd around with what she calls ‘cubes’ of water, small water tanks that fit in  the back of her pickup truck. 

“If I have to do so much to protect the creek, which I think is the right thing to do,” she said, “why doesn’t PG&E have the responsibility to treat that creek with the same amount of caution? And when I asked them, so have you done environmental reviews, they said yes, but they won’t show me those reviews, they won’t connect me to the people who did the reviews, and when I said, that is what I need in order to give consent: that in order for me to be able to agree to them doing this work, I would need to speak with the environmental review people, that is when they were like, okay, delay, we’re going to do the properties on both sides of you.” 

Contreras offered to send an inspector to the properties, but Cole and Kaiser were reluctant to allow PG&E personnel onto their land. Contreras apologized for any lack of communication, saying Cole should have received proper notice.

“If you add up the costs of Enhanced Vegetation Management, which is around $2 billion a year, it costs a whole lot more to cut down the trees and pay the contractors and deal with the slash and all that, than it does to rebuild the infrastructure,” said Nancy Macy, the chair of the Sierra Club’s California Utility Wildfire Prevention Taskforce, which wrote a white paper with a cost-benefit analysis of PG&E’s EVM program last year.  “It’s really expensive,” she observed. “And it doesn’t work. How can it work? You can’t cut down every tree that may or may not, sometime in the future, have a problem.” She expects the costs of EVM to hit ratepayers at an average of $10 per month.

“Unfortunately, the costs for wildfire mitigation, for the most part, are borne by ratepayers,” said Mark Toney, the Executive Director of The Utility Reform Network, a ratepayer advocacy group. Vegetation management is expensive, but he says it’s not profitable for the company, which gets a 10% rate of return on capital investments, like insulating the lines or burying them. “That’s how any utility makes its profit. It’s from the rate of return on investments in capital projects,” he explained. Vegetation management is an ongoing operating and maintenance cost, which Toney emphasized is “a straight pass-through (with) zero profit, no return.”

Still, there are financial consequences. Judge Alsup’s order lays out strict wildfire mitigation measures, including a requirement that the company make sure it can pay contractors to do the work. “To ensure that sufficient financial resources are available for this purpose,” he wrote, “PG&E may not issue any dividends until it is in compliance with all applicable vegetation management requirements as set forth above.”

And Toney said if investigators find that PG&E has caused a fire through negligence, “then the shareholders are responsible for any amount over what the insurance covers.” That means liability looms if PG&E fails to cut a tree it was supposed to cut, and that tree then falls on a line and causes a fire.

But the Sierra Club Task Force wrote that vegetation doesn’t cause nearly enough fires to warrant the amount of money being spent on management efforts. For their white paper, they delved into PG&E’s 2020 Wildfire Mitigation Plan, and found that “Information presented in PG&E’s WMP shows that tree interactions with power lines are responsible for 25% of utility ignitions…EVM will not succeed in reducing wildfire ignition because 75% of the problem…is with the antiquated infrastructure, not the trees.” The accompanying cost-benefit analysis compared PG&E’s approach to that of two other large utilities, San Diego Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison, using charts from the CPUC’s Wildfire Safety Division’s draft guidance resolution of May, 2020, and found that the other two achieved more safety for less money. Lead author Paul Norcutt asserts that in 2020, EVM alone, through August, came to $416 million. Routine Vegetation Management came out to $494 million, which means that “PG&E is spending two and a half times what was planned for 2020.” Based on PG&E’s own declaration that it had completed 1878 miles of EVM for the year, Norcutt calculated the cost of EVM at $494,000 per mile. In comparison, he calculated that SoCal Edison spent $428,000 per mile to replace bare distribution cable with steel core, triple insulated conductor, a one-time cost which reduces fire risk by 75%.

Norcutt also reported that San Diego Gas & Electric has buried 60% of its lines. On the remaining 40% of its system, the utility is installing computerized circuit breakers for protection from arcing broken cables, at a cost of about $100,000 per mile.

 Trees felled along the edge of Katharine Coles pasture

Trees felled along the edge of Katharine Cole’s pasture.

It’s unlikely that the company’s records are granular enough that anyone can say with certainty how much it’s spent, sending contractors out to Kellen Kaiser’s property in Hopland. Kaiser said she started resisting their presence last year, after crews closed gates between pastures where she wanted cows to wander freely, or left them open when she wanted them closed. Most of all, she and her neighbor Katharine Cole are sick of the debris. “We’re not making the money to mitigate this ourselves,” Cole said. “So we are stuck, dependent on them to do something to then clean up the mess.”

“That’s what I kept saying when I was arguing with them last year,” Kaiser put in. “I said, I’m not sure if you understand, but you create these messes. I am just one woman. And so, twelve guys come in here and make a mess and leave one woman to clean it up. I have a day job!”

Most ranchers do. Kaiser works as a sex educator. “[S]o I teach about consent all the time,” she said. “And it seems to me that the concept of consent is totally lost upon these people.”

Note: this version was slightly revised at 8:54 a.m. Sunday, December 12 to remove one sentence that is disputed from the Sierra Club paper.

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Mendocino Mamma
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Mendocino Mamma
2 years ago

Early on almost 2 years ago I was freaking out. I sounded the warning bell to many. Kym being one of the contacts. I knew this was REALLY BAD. NOT HOW IT SHOULD BE. TOTAL DISREGARD FOR ANY LIFE OR LANDOWNER. Yes fire safety is important but massive unplanned clear cuts of healthy forest for no healthy purpose is very concerning. Our canyon was formerly a shady, fern filled canyon with a seasonal creek. Tons of salamanders, brown frogs, flickers, crows, turkey, in the spring ,a fine deer nursery with lots of twins hidden around.. A mile of this deep canyon was cleared. The crews slashing with endless trucks, machines, shiney gear. None from around here, I dobut they saw huge trees like they felled in the canyon before. One day they flipped their side by side over in the middle of the road.No forester worth a bean would approve these plans. The massive amounts of crews, the multiple cash grabbing companies there is no way with how they are scattered about to contain or control the quality of their work , and monitor it . If any Forester went out and inspected the sites after they would be horrified. Outlet creek dissapeared below the piles. For weeks after the work the ravens and crows sat crying out on the skeletons of what was left. Located in Northern Mendocino County it is now a barren dead pile of slash many feet deep. Some of it was chipped. All that is left is non native feral pigs and a few thin small deer. The ground down stumps of tan, blue oak, pepperwood and madrone now 2 years in sprouting brushy,high sap bushes as they attempt to regenerate. I called it a PG&E massacre then. Why is this conversation still happening, why is not an emergency stop work intiated? I feel so sad no one heard my cries, concerns warning bells. Now it is a DISASTER!! Go PG&E. 😱😭💔

Last edited 2 years ago
You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
Guest
You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
2 years ago

I’m not happy or excited about PG&Es clearing,but…Caltrans did a big culvert thing there, there was clearing along the railway right of way, the big snow last winter thrashed all the tanoak along 101, then there was the fire, from Brooktrails, then PG&E. So… Just to be honest with yourself about it. Your wildlife survey sounds biased. People just don’t get fired up and rant about their ambivalence that often. Comments may trend away from the average person’s feelings on the subject.

Mendocino Mamma
Guest
Mendocino Mamma
2 years ago

Biased? Ignorant to… when you drive it daily for 20 years. Yes wildlife abound. All of life is not seen. Took many videos of the crying crows/ravens and the mess afterwards.

You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
Guest
You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
2 years ago

Nah, it’s just kinda a bad choices on both sides thing. These easements where overgrown and neglected, and that was what PG&e reps were hearing. The brush piles below lines were tight fuels, and the trees that knock out large sections of lines here are biggish ones tipping over in snow and wind events. If you wanted to cut trees in these areas, you’d be risking hitting the lines, so in that sense, this is work that’d be harder for a landowner to do on their own. They haven’t churned through my property yet so I may have to eat my words! There are trees that I would hate for them to cut, and some that should go. The Ravens may have been looking for lunch.

Bozo
Guest
Bozo
2 years ago

Yup… Let’s make a land ownership fund and let these landowners put their property in it. After a power-caused fire, the properties would be sold and the funds would be distributed to the people suffering losses.

As far as I’m concerned… that is a win-win situation !

joe
Guest
joe
2 years ago
Reply to  Bozo

Bozo is RIGHT![edit] you would realize there are many different ways to reduce the fire hazard caused by power lines.
Upgrading the actual lines with triple insulated wires is a superior solution to the radical butchering which requires annual maintenance a few years after it’s done and flammable brush grows in place of trees.
PG&E has put themselves in a hard place with Global Warming catching up with their lack of maintenance, but there are lots of good answers out there, at least better than wholesale butchering ofthe forest [edit].

Jim’s Guest Is Someone Else’s Wife
Guest
Jim’s Guest Is Someone Else’s Wife
2 years ago
Reply to  joe

Pssst… it’s not Global Warming anymore. Freezing and cold snaps in other areas kinda broke their narrative….

But how much blame is on the Environmentalists because clearing brush or logging might harm a slug or something, so decades of untended brush have done what untended brush does. BURN!

Non-fiction
Guest
Non-fiction
2 years ago

Drastically oversimplified and undeniably incorrect view of global warming Jim’s.

Hayforker
Guest
Hayforker
2 years ago

The prior article about spotted owls may have some insight into a possible path of action. The conservation groups filed suit over NEPA violations. Maybe the people impacted by PGE should also consider CEQA suit?

Joe Mota
Guest
Joe Mota
2 years ago

So if the state legislature changed the accounting rules and allowed the cost of burying the lines to be written off as an expense rather than depreciated as a capital investment, they would bury the lines and essentially eliminate the fire hazard instead of the current policy which only kicks the can down the road for a few years?

You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
Guest
You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
2 years ago
Reply to  Joe Mota

Just think about burying! Trenching up and down through these areas would be worse. (Remember to look up the Long Beach burial disaster) You’d have to fall many of these trees to bury lines. I drive through the work in Humboldt Redwoods State park all the time.(it’s up hill from the bull creek flats in fir, and tanoak) Trees grow, and fall. The felled trees still are holding carbon. Ultimately it’s a corridor not an entire forest. My feeling is the protesters there have been kinda pushed into getting ginned up on the issue, by folks who felt virtuous protesting in the past, and now it’s the only response. I hope everyone is safe. If you have a house in these forests, even without power lines, at some point you’re gonna have to do some tree, or brush clearing, or hope the return of fire to that landscape holds off a generation.

Also, they’ve found that humans universally overestimate the number of coyotes they hear. Those “16” coyotes were more likely 4 at the most… According to “Fuzz”, When Nature Breaks the Law, by Mary Roach

You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
Guest
You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
2 years ago
Reply to  Joe Mota

Also, the sierra club white paper states SoCal Edison, and San Diego power did the clearing cheaper… Well shiit! No doubt! There are no trees there! Obviously the work is more expensive up north, where PG&E has responsibility.

hmm
Guest
hmm
2 years ago
Reply to  Joe Mota

If we are going to (further) socialize the power grid then lets just socialize the grid, not give out corporate welfare. Or make them pay regardless of the impact to their profit margins.

Connie DobbsD
Member
Connie Dobbs
2 years ago

Sounds like they bought the wrong parcels.

Hayforker
Guest
Hayforker
2 years ago
Reply to  Connie Dobbs

Are you deaf?

Jim’s Guest Is Someone Else’s Wife
Guest
Jim’s Guest Is Someone Else’s Wife
2 years ago
Reply to  Connie Dobbs

Either that or didn’t read the disclosures nor understand the easements. But, maybe sniveling on a local blog will help…

Not!

canyon oak
Member
canyon oak
2 years ago

Female ranchers who resent men, lol.
Love it..
What’s with the arm tattoos and masking in the great outdoors?
That says all we need to know about what kind of “rancher” she is.
I’m pretty sure most liberals have been accusing ranchers and loggers of being white supreme’s and genociders, right?
To the point, If landowners don’t allow utilities to clear their easements, then landowners should be liable for damages next summer during the next round of fires, seems fair.
And where do you find these people?
A “rancher” who daylights as a sex educator?
Well, maybe your more like a sex educator who likes to role play as a patriarchal white man from the 1940’s, minus the skill.
Can’t make this shit up, hopland, land of wino yuppies and brown field hands.
But she’s upset about some trees, got it.

Kym Kemp
Admin
2 years ago
Reply to  canyon oak

I hope you just hadn’t had your coffee yet but you are pushing into slamming folks for their sex and race which is speech I’m not willing to host.

Hayforker
Guest
Hayforker
2 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

Kym, it’s actually good to read how unreasonable some people are. Helps put things into perspective.

canyon oak
Member
canyon oak
2 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

Kym, have you not been listening to narratives on race and gender being promulgated by the corporate and political establishments in America?
They are making everything about race and gender, so I am too, albeit as subterfuge.
I’m not slamming Latino(LatinX?lol)
field hands, I’m calling attention to the class divide in the capitalist milieu that likes fine wine, fine Cannabis and even cheaper labor!
And it’s the leftist activists who have popularized absurd terms like
“Black & Brown bodies” in reference and in efforts to differentiate those kind of Americans from “white” oppressers like me.
I guess I shouldn’t expect people to understand my intellectual vengeance.
If we don’t want the rancid beef about race and gender, then why did Kellen bring up gender?.
My retort was in part because Kellen Kaiser went out of her way to insinuated she was being treated poorly by this tree crew because she was a women and they were men. She claimed they were acting in “all these problematic ways” “wandering around her land”.
That sounds like a accusation of sexism.
If she gets to insult people that have no choice but to work for a living, well, I don’t think my iconoclastic comment is particularly unfair.
But, yes Kym, i know I’m a little hard on the mind, pardon my poor temperament.
I will try to be more contentious

Steve Koch
Guest
Steve Koch
2 years ago
Reply to  canyon oak

Your writing is intelligent, interesting, fun, insightful, and inciteful😁 except the part about man hating, that might be a bit harsh. I know what you mean but maybe there is a more accurate term to use (though I don’t know what it is).

canyon oak
Member
canyon oak
2 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

Not “contentious”, I meant I will try to be more “conscientious”…

Marco
Guest
Marco
2 years ago
Reply to  canyon oak

A mask on in the great outdoors! When I see people masked on Forest trails, bike riding and driving alone in their car, I think dumbest people on the planet. PG&;E is in a tough spot if they don’t do enough clearing they’ll be liable for not doing the clearing if they do too much clearing they’re liable for destroying the “natural” environment with fire.

Last edited 2 years ago
c u 2morrowD
Member
2 years ago
Reply to  Marco

damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

mlr the giant squirrel in Eureka
Guest
mlr the giant squirrel in Eureka
2 years ago

$2B/yr is quite expensive for ratepayers but the tree cutting crews are good winter business for our hotels

ILoveplants
Guest
ILoveplants
2 years ago

Pg and e is stuck between a rock and a hard place… they’re damned if they do, and they’re damned if they don’t.

Fack Chuck
Guest
Fack Chuck
2 years ago
Reply to  ILoveplants

Oh, they’re damned if they do or don’t all right and they know it. They’ve been behaving as the damned since the beginning and as ambassadors of the dark lord of the hoary netherworld they know what their mission is.

And they also provide electricity, so that’s nice.

Don T MattaD
Member
Don T Matta
2 years ago
Reply to  Fack Chuck

Nice???? Meh, I don’t think so personally, but YMMV!!! We could get electricity a lot easier & less headache as well as cheaper cost if it was a State Run Utility!!!

I like stars
Guest
I like stars
2 years ago
Reply to  Don T Matta

Are you kidding? The state can’t even successfully run a deposit program for aluminum cans.

hmm
Guest
hmm
2 years ago
Reply to  I like stars

Because waste despoasl is poorly regulated and entirely private.

Chris
Guest
Chris
2 years ago
Reply to  hmm

But… they still collect our crv and fine businesses if there isn’t a crv redemption site operating within X miles

Jim’s Guest Is Someone Else’s Wife
Guest
Jim’s Guest Is Someone Else’s Wife
2 years ago
Reply to  I like stars

Amazing how these old folks think the government is gonna fix everything, isn’t it??

Nooo
Guest
Nooo
2 years ago
Reply to  ILoveplants

Yes they can make a mess. Sometimes the trimmers do some cutting they shouldn’t. Once I complained in a call, left a voice mail and was surprised when the next week a chipper came through and took the piles I complained about. But sometimes they do just chuck branches and such into the woods with an out of sight, out of mind intent. I also once walked with a pg&e person and actually flagged trees we agreed were not to be cut. It is a process with a bit of irritation on both sides. I just don’t see the outrage level justified in those photos.

I understand grief over losing trees but looking at that one picture of the cut back along the power lines, I immediately saw a stash of wood chips for landscaping and bedding and next year’s firewood. If I can’t get to it myself, I know there are plenty who would do splitting for a share of the wood. As for leaving gates open or closed, the gate golden rule should apply but I always went through after they left to make sure, especially with gates leading onto roads. If that didn’t work, I planned to put a sign on them.

Blindeye
Guest
Blindeye
2 years ago

If a cannabis farmer did this, it would be considered a illegal timber conversion from Cal fire. Also I see lots of this tree work happening in the rain, creating lots of mud next to streams, creeks and rivers where is the California water board?
Since this is happening in the wilderness and there are sensitive species, where is Fish and Wildlife?

You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
Guest
You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
2 years ago
Reply to  Blindeye

Good question. The Water board is busy not sending reminders on their odd scheduled reporting requirements, so that you get confused, or forget, and get an outsized fine. This works best on small isolated private citizens. Not so well on large lawyered corporations, who are clearing narrow easements they have responsibilities for. The rain has only been falling for 20hrs of this last storm. To answer your other question, no, it is not wilderness. The clearing is along power lines, so sorta the opposite of wilderness. so…remember, you can be intellectually dishonest with yourself, but I go outside.

Last edited 2 years ago
Blindeye
Guest
Blindeye
2 years ago

Power lines don’t run thru the wilderness?

You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
Guest
You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
2 years ago
Reply to  Blindeye

Wildlands might be a good word for it, but wilderness is actually a specific designation with pretty major restrictions: pack out poo, no dogs, no drones, no motorized nothin…no power line easements. That’s a good thing.

Blindeye
Guest
Blindeye
2 years ago

You are talking about government designated wilderness areas. I am just talking about wilderness
Here is the dictionary definition which is much more broad
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wilderness
Who’s intellectualy dishonest
now?

You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
Guest
You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
2 years ago
Reply to  Blindeye

Click on your own link, and read the definition you provided! We’ve all been talking about clearing EXISTING power line easements. The power lines lead to homes. We see them from roads. Take a trip to actual wilderness. It’s Awsome.

Blindeye
Guest
Blindeye
2 years ago

Look up the South fork Eel River wilderness, there are power lines going right up to a huge radio tower that is inside the BLM “wilderness area” You should take a trip to the internet before you post your know it all comments. I have taken plenty of trips into areas with no power lines.
Here is a link
https://www.blm.gov/visit/south-fork-eel-river-wilderness

You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
Guest
You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
2 years ago
Reply to  Blindeye

Cool, your link doesn’t show details like the towers, or power lines, but I’ll look em up using Caltopo maps or something. I believe you though. Perhaps the Wilderness designation came later. Which is great.
My point is this: if you say “they are moonscaping in a wilderness area” that means something. It means something different than “they are clearing around the power lines to my house”. If aliens are probing butts, that is bad. But if they’re not, then I will moderate my outrage.

You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
Guest
You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
2 years ago
Reply to  Blindeye

Shoot, i tried flying around the aerial photos, no tower or power lines that I can find in the Elkhorn Ridge Wilderness above the SFork. Red MTN.? Many radio repeaters use generators, and don’t have power lines…idk…you got lat longs? Namaste

Blindeye
Guest
Blindeye
2 years ago

Look up Cahto Peak

Blindeye
Guest
Blindeye
2 years ago

Basically we disagree on what wilderness is. My opinion is wilderness is not just govt “designated wilderness” just because there are power lines doesn’t ruin a wilderness description

Almost
Guest
Almost
2 years ago

Mendocino County just made a announcement that is was switching to Sonoma Clean Power to make the county buildings use “renewable energy”, the problem is it still travels thru PGE power lines
Do these actions seem “clean” or “renewable”? Getting thousands of trucks from out of state to drive around all day cutting trees, Pouring sediment in the creeks. Just because Sonoma Clean Power uses solar and Geo thermal does not mean it’s renewable. They are still using PGE power grid.
Nice try

Hayforker
Guest
Hayforker
2 years ago
Reply to  Almost

Welcome to the great climate change facade.

Guess
Guest
Guess
2 years ago

It’s a doomed strategy, unless they are going to come clear the lines every few months a lot of brushy fuel is going to take the place of once semi flame resistant older growth trees with higher branches.

Kym Kemp
Admin
2 years ago
Reply to  Guess

That’s what I see as the biggest issue. It seems financially unsustainable to maintain though reportedly they plan to use herbicides to maintain which is not a pleasant thought for those trying to maintain an organic living/growing situation.

Nooo
Guest
Nooo
2 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

It is unsustainable to not do it too. That’s why PG&E leases land they own for grazing under power lines.

Hayforker
Guest
Hayforker
2 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

Agreed. Here in Trinity we have a ban on the use of herbicides by local government. Caltrans tries to use them every few years but they are stopped by local protests. Now TPUD is proposing to use herbicides to control vegetation under their lines because they think it’s cost effective. There is no accounting for the large impacts it causes.

Mattolian
Guest
Mattolian
2 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

Agree, the shaded fuel breaks they are destroyng with erosion prone clearcuts seams short sighted. County road crews who can’t keep up with potholes will have more than they can handle as those stumps rot and hills slide and power poles slide too. Would have been cheaper and more sustainable to burn those shaded fuel breaks.

The king
Guest
The king
2 years ago
Reply to  Guess

Cutting the trees is too prevent trees from contacting the line, ripping lines down or just leaning can cause fire. As far as the brush on the ground goes, as long as the lines stay in the air and don’t arc then the brush shouldn’t burn from pge. Plenty of other things still start fires, fortunately nothing on the moon would burn, maybe mooscaping will be safer

Gavin'sComb
Guest
Gavin'sComb
2 years ago

“that crews had cleared from PG&E’s easement.”
Their easement clearly states that is their right. Did she read the deed when she purchased the property? If not, she failed in her due diligence and has no ground to stand on. Next

c u 2morrowD
Member
2 years ago
Reply to  Gavin'sComb

I read it in my declaration of easements and abatements. The right to control vegetation deemed to be a nuisance.

Joshua WoodsD
Member
2 years ago

Everyone want angry at PG&E for starting fires and said how they need to do more to prevent fires. Be careful what you wish for.

Buzz
Guest
Buzz
2 years ago

The communication structure between PGE, it’s contractors, and landowners is dysfunctional.

Jim’s Guest Is Someone Else’s Wife
Guest
Jim’s Guest Is Someone Else’s Wife
2 years ago
Reply to  Buzz

However, the communication between the Newsome Proletariat, the judge that issued the order f on the bench and PG&E is crystal clear. And it’s also very apparent that PG&E is going to sharply raise rates so they can appease stockholders waiting for those dividends. I’m telling anyone that listens go long on PCG. It was trading at over $70 per share less than 5 years ago. $12 range now. Easy money!

Buzz
Guest
Buzz
2 years ago

Nice!
Beers on me if I win big 🤘

justanotherperson
Guest
justanotherperson
2 years ago

I think the point made about numerous contracted outfits being hired to do this logging is quite important. There’s no oversight and it sounds like a free for all. Lot’s of money to be made, especially when rules are lax.

Mendocino Mamma
Guest
Mendocino Mamma
2 years ago

“Logging”

Nooo
Guest
Nooo
2 years ago

Loggers take the logs. The complaint here is just the opposite.

You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
Guest
You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
2 years ago

They don’t get more money for doing more work. They have a contract for a certain distance, at a certain amount. They would keep more money by doing less along the way. The crews want to do the minimum to satisfy the terms.

Kym Kemp
Admin
2 years ago

It isn’t a time and materials contract?

You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
Guest
You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
2 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

I really don’t know. Typically brushing jobs have some kind of limit on how long you’re gonna take to do X amount of work. Otherwise I would take the rest of my life to do a mile! Why not let the saw idle, and take a lil nap?!

Dave Kahan
Guest
Dave Kahan
2 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

One of the contracted foresters told me a couple of years ago that the tree trimmers get paid “by the unit,” meaning for each tree they work on. That incentivizes them to do as little as possible, moving on quickly for the same amount of $. Don’t know if the Enhanced Vegetation Management program works differently. I suspect it does, for the amount of work being done in my neighborhood, at least.

Jim’s Guest is Someone Else’s Depository
Guest
Jim’s Guest is Someone Else’s Depository
2 years ago

Sounds like PG&E is following the sage advice of President Donald Trump…

“Just rake your forests!”

Of course the Environmental Groups are wailing and gnashing their teeth, but in all actuality, it is their lawsuits in the past that prevented any land management to be done in the first place.

PG&E has the blessings of the Administration in power in California and an order from a judge.

Wildfires are bad optics, dontchaknow? Especially during election years.

And the rate payers are going to pay for it all…

Hmmm… time to look at PG&E stock again. Those dividends are going to be churning in a year or two…

Last edited 2 years ago
What!?D
Member
What!?
2 years ago

PG&E out of California!

Jim’s Guest Is Someone Else’s Wife
Guest
Jim’s Guest Is Someone Else’s Wife
2 years ago
Reply to  What!?

Okay, Fred… but is Barney gonna help you push your Tesla all over town???

Baby Monster
Guest
Baby Monster
2 years ago

“because it’s just all of these men, wandering through the property, really acting in these problematic ways.”

Really Kym? Is this the type of speech that your are NOT only willing to host but promote?!?!
This type of violent speech is putting half of the population at risk, in a community we should all be able to feel safe in.

Buzz
Guest
Buzz
2 years ago
Reply to  Baby Monster

Fire season ends with the rains, meanwhile the assault on gender is unrelenting throughout the year.

Kym Kemp
Admin
2 years ago
Reply to  Baby Monster

That’s violent speech…? Good lord, child, you should see the comments I delete then.

Baby Monster
Guest
Baby Monster
2 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

PG@E has hired subcontractors to preform tasks within predetermined specification. How you all think that a different end result will occur with another gender preforming such tasks?

This is at worst outright bigotry and at best a veiled dogwhistle.
HATE HAS NO HOME IN HOMBOULT!

They’re your own rules Kym and I appreciate them.
#3No slurs–racial, ethnic, gender, political etc.

And as far as calling me names see #2
#2. Insulting other commenters will get you deleted. Do it too often and you will get banned.

Come on Kym play the ball not the man.
You’re better than that.

Last edited 2 years ago
Jim’s Guest Is Someone Else’s Wife
Guest
Jim’s Guest Is Someone Else’s Wife
2 years ago
Reply to  Baby Monster

Lol! I love sarcasm…

c u 2morrowD
Member
2 years ago
Reply to  Baby Monster

get a grip

Ullr Rover
Guest
Ullr Rover
2 years ago

My grid connection has been out since August 3rd with the Monument Fire. PG&E has been doing surveys to put this run underground… they have done nothing towards stringing new lines. The fire followed the power lines with the slash piles PG&E left when they “cleared” under the transmission lines.

You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
Guest
You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
2 years ago
Reply to  Ullr Rover

Underground burial makes sense in flat, new subdivisions, where they’re burying everything else. It’s tough to do around existing infrastructure. It also is much more practical to be used on low voltage runs. High voltage burial requires oil insulation that must have cooling systems. That oil used to be PCBs.

Ullr Rover
Guest
Ullr Rover
2 years ago

Well, this is anything but a flat area. And they are going to bury high voltage lines.

Very few properties or building to work around though,

Cswarth
Guest
Cswarth
2 years ago

In Mariposa County the PGE contractors ArborWorks and others spent 5 months in 2021 returning again and again to the same 100m long stretch of power line next to my property. Probably 5-6 different crews and different crew chiefs. Each time the crew did a little more trimming or some takedowns. This power line runs across a neighbor’s land (which is unoccupied). The crews must have been along this line a dozen different times on different days over 5 months. When I talked to two crew chiefs they said PGE required that three different audit contractors must come, inspect, and authorize their work. This meant that numerous contractors and crews visited this one short (100 meter) line again and again. The chiefs kept flagging oaks further and further away from the lines. They said any tree that had most remote chance of falling and hitting the lines or guy lines, must be cut. Any tree that showed any evidence that there was rot or cracked trunks, must be felled. The result was a swath of clear cut that went 40 feet or more on either side of the power lines. This work could have been done in one day. Instead, the contractors dragged the work out for months, with many different crews. From my perspective as a the neighbor, this looked like a scam and a boondoggle. At times, crews arrived and stood around for hours “assessing”. Then they left, and another crew arrived a week later. Certainly the line clearing companies that have these contracts are making a financial windfall (no pun intended). Any segment of power lines can represent hours or days of work, “assessing”, auditing and just hanging out. An investigative reporter with the LA Times, etc., could well uncover graft and gross malfeasance with this line clearing project that’s meant to reduce the the threat of trees causing fires by striking wires. I asked the crew chiefs, why not just bury the lines underground? No answer. In our area in Mariposa County we’ve lost tens of thousands of Ponderosa pines to diseases over the last 8 years. Now, PGE line clearers are removing 1,000s of healthy oaks. A significant loss for habitat and for CO2 uptake. A mess. PGE should have burried their lines decades ago. Now they’re clear cutting immense swaths of healthy forest. This is overkill.

Jeffersonian
Guest
2 years ago

Its pges right of ways, and many people dont realize the lands they traverse are legally subject to their use and maintenance. Pge is under enormous pressure to protect its lines from causing fire, and arguably it’s better for them to do adequate clearing of the space around them that’s within the right of way, lest they be bombarded with even more liability for negligent maintenance which raises the utility bills for everyone. I have generally found them to be cooperative as well as the crews they contract the work to.

You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
Guest
You can't make anyone happy. All of the time.
2 years ago

A hippy brandished a gun at tree crews this summer above Honeydew. Sheriff came, hippy hid. Now he has firewood, and light for his plants on the land he’s squatting on.

Ullr Rover
Guest
Ullr Rover
2 years ago

Ahhh, a happy ending.

Zipline
Guest
Zipline
2 years ago

P.G. & E. will be happy to bury power lines….just write them a check to pay for it….better idea, p.g.& e. should permanently de-energize power lines running through woods….supply your own power and quit bitching. You can sign a release so you will be responsible for any costs associated with a fire starting on your property…..No? I thought not.

Farce
Guest
Farce
2 years ago

I’m Happy that I am living far off grid and no power lines for miles. But I am a little confused by peoples’ reactions… If you bought a property with power liness crossing it and an easement for PG& E to maintain then how did you think that you lived in wilderness?! You must have known that this was what you bought into and that this day would come… Do you have electricity and you love it? Did you blame PG&E for the fires that came from their equipment running through wooded areas? I have never trusted PG&E and yes I got arrested at Diablo Canyon. But what I’m seeing here is a lot of cognitive dissonance… You want to live in the woods and you want to have electricity supplied from the grid and you don’t want to have forest fires and you don’t want them to clear around the power lines. And they are bad and you are good. Okay right- I got it!

Kym Kemp
Admin
2 years ago
Reply to  Farce

Did you read Harry’s story that’s linked at the top of this one?

Steve Koch
Guest
Steve Koch
2 years ago
Reply to  Farce

Yeah, when you buy a property, the locations and conditions of easements on that property are explicitly stated in the title report. PG&E easements are super common. If somebody does not want to comply with the easement, don’t buy the property, don’t ask for special, preferential treatment after agreeing to the easement.

PG&E has a legal and moral obligation to minimize fire danger from their power lines. I am glad to see them clearing around their lines cuz I live here and don’t want my house getting burned down and don’t want forests getting destroyed in high intensity fires.

Martin
Guest
Martin
2 years ago

Have your land cleared away from the power lines or have a wildfire. The choice is yours! It does not seem to matter what PG&E tries to do, people are always calling them wrong!

c u 2morrowD
Member
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin

they’re in a tough spot.

c u 2morrowD
Member
2 years ago

can’t have one without the other

jason
Guest
jason
2 years ago

Just replant the trees you want growing there as they drive away.

c u 2morrowD
Member
2 years ago

coyotes mourning a felled oak tree … ? Pictures or it didn’t happen.

Liberty Biberty
Guest
Liberty Biberty
2 years ago
Reply to  c u 2morrow

I’m pretty sure that that thing with a mask on in the middle of the field is a potential coyote in disguise

Jan Vaughn
Guest
Jan Vaughn
2 years ago

Beset & Bewildered