Page 10 - Sonoma County Gazette August 2019
P. 10

PG&E cont’d from page 1
   Last month the Gazette ran an article by Tim McKusick of Timber Cove
on the vast acreage of land where PG&E power lines are going through unmanaged private land. The fire risk has local citizens alarmed. Sudden Oak Death has claimed the lives of many trees and their dead carcasses remain mixed among power lines.
Fear of fire has communities in these coastal forests fearful for good
reason. Thousands of acres of forest no longer are subject to cleaning fires because homes and businesses are scattered throughout the hills and fires are contained instead used for forest management.
So how do we reconcile this fear with the concern and
outrage over tree trimming and removal?
One of the major complaints has been lack of notice in advance so that property owners can contact PG&E before removal starts on their property.
Another issue is with easements. Who owns those easements and did people unknowingly offer easements to PG&E without realizing the consequences?
Years ago PG&E sent out requests for access easements to property owners who have power poles on their land and power lines running pole to pole. Most people thought nothing of it. Why not?
Now that fire has become commonplace and many property owners are not managing their vegetation, PG&E is taking the responsibility for trimming and tree removal. For them it makes sense to reduce their liability. For property owners, it’s shocking and permanently alters where they live.
 When inspectors come by to tag trees, they either tag them with color paint or put plastic ribbon tags near where work is to be done.
PG&E uses pink, white and yellow markings on trees in Sonoma County.
An X means marked for removal, a dot means trimming needs to be done. We have also seen bright green painted dots on trees. According to one reader, when trees are within riparian corridors they do not use paint.
For some people this feels like a financial advantage since tree services are expensive. But keep in mind that PG&E only clears the path for power lines. If your lines are thick, chances are they are communication lines, not power lines, which are thin. If the tree company coming by leaves piles of debris, contact PG&E to make them aware of the fire-hazard left behind. Depending on the crew doing the work, some are better than others around cleaning up after themselves.
Automatic Shut-Off of Power Grids
Then we come to the issue of power outages. In several communities, PG&E installed automatic shut-off devices so that they didn’t need to take the time to send a crew out to climb poles in an emergency. They still need to shut off gas lines and the tricky part of that is turning them back on. The last time PG&E turned off Natural Gas to fix a problem, they sent crews out to turn the gas back on building to building. Electricity is a lot easier.
 This is a topic that has not been resolved yet in terms of how people can ride this power outage wave. For people whose lives are dependent upon electricity for life-support systems, generators and solar/wind may not be enough. It’s easy to keep bottled water in a freezer to keep the refrigerator cold for a few days, but life-support systems require a far more complicated power system.
  Until power lines go underground and alternative power systems are commonplace, we are dependent upon this state-wide power grid, so learning to live with the consequences and taking tasks into our own hands is the only way to control the consequences of potential emergencies.
Neighborhood Groups for Preparedness
Just as COPE (Citizens Organized to Prepare for Emergencies), MYN (Map Your Neighborhood) and Fire-Safe groups are taking care of their own homes and each other. That kind of thinking can benefit people who are feeling helpless in the face of PG&E Vegetation Management.
Rake, rake and rake again. Sweep your roof, clean your gutters, trim your trees...all of these things keep fire risk as low as humanly possible.
But it’s the neighborhood groups who expand emergency preparedness to support individuals who cannot take care of their own needs. Elderly people, infirm people, people with small children, people with no skills for this type of work are all dependent upon either PG&E, Fire departments, governments or each other.
 10 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 8/19
While you are forming your own groups, here is some information to answer questions about PG&E’s Vegetation Management practices. Until we have underground power and until years of deferred maintenance is brought current, we really need to put risk-management in our own hands if we want to protect our homes, our families, and our friends.










































































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