Letter to the Editor: Petition for BOS to stop PG&E is illogical
I understand a petition is circulating in the community for eventual delivery to the Board of Supervisors. The petition demands that PG&E stops operating in Plumas County due to its involvement in recent wildfires.
As neither a shareholder nor paid consultant of PG&E, I have to question this wrongheaded move. If PG&E were to pull out of Plumas County, who does the petition’s author think will bring electricity to our community, never mind maintain utility infrastructure such as lines, transformers, and substations? Who would handle billing, communications, and field teams to accomplish this? Would we need approval from the Public Utility Commission to make this significant change? And how long would that take? This petition provides no answers to the logical questions that any reasonable person would ask. I expect that the Board of Supervisors has adequate challenges elsewhere.
I won’t argue the charge that this utility has a history of problems with fire ignition. However, I will assert that they are making progress under stricter scrutiny by the PUC and the governor.
It’s increasingly understood that whether the Dixie had been ignited by PG&E or by a lightning event, the result would likely have been the same. The condition of an inadequately thinned forest and the influence of extended drought, along with high winds, produced ideal conditions for an inferno that 6,000 staff couldn’t contain for months.
Rather than sign a reactionary petition that diverts attention from the underlying problem, members of our community should insist that the federal government implement forest management practices that mitigate the effects of ongoing drought. A terrific management prescription by the Quincy Library Group was passed by Congress in 1998. We should push the federal government to re-start and expand it.
Bill Martin
Quincy