You have to give it up for Mayor Bob Whalen. He’s been trying to get Laguna Beach’s notorious power lines buried since before he had gray hair.
His latest trip to Sacramento, along with fellow Councilmember Alex Rounaghi, sounds like it went well, but we’ve heard that before. No fault for the effort, but the real meetings need to happen in the beleaguered offices of Southern California Edison.
SCE has to foot this undergrounding bill. Unfortunately, they are still paying off the billions of dollars in previous wildfire settlements caused by their equipment.
You’d think they’d learn.
Remember the 2018 Woolsey Fire? Santa Monica Mountains, burned almost 100,000 acres, destroyed 1,643 structures, killed three people, and prompted the evacuation of more than 295,000 people.
SCE paid $2.2 billion to settle insurance claims.
And then there was the $550 million settlement in 2021 to cover five different wildfires all caused by SCE that swept through Southern California from 2017 and 2018.
There are multiple ongoing lawsuits over the Hemet fire in 2022 that killed two people and injured two firefighters.
Locally, a group of homeowners is suing SCE over last year’s Coastal Fire in Laguna Niguel, which destroyed more than 20 homes and was caused by SCE equipment.
Laguna Beach’s own Emerald Fire last February should have been named the “Southern California Edison 33°33’29.1″N 117°48’20.4″W Fire.” That’s where the fire started, courtesy of SCE power lines.
So why doesn’t SCE just avoid these disasters and bury the power lines?
Because SCE doesn’t underground – not really. It’s an above-ground company. Always has been.
Officially, they say that undergrounding is part of their strategy, but they’ve done little actual undergrounding, according to their own Wildfire Mitigation Plan. From 2020-2022, SCE has only completed 19 miles of undergrounding – in the entire state.
SCE’s real plan is to focus on improving its overhead wires. Called “covered conductors,” they are fancier insulted wires to replace the existing bare ones. The reality is, compared to undergrounding, covered conductors are cheap and easy to install.
SCE says the “average lifetime cost” of undergrounding is $2.9 million to $4.5 million per mile and takes two to four years to complete. By contrast, upgrading the existing lines is about $1 million per mile and can be deployed in just over a year.
“A key benefit of covered conductor is the relatively fast speed at which it can be installed to achieve immediate wildfire risk reduction,” SCE says. “That’s one of the reasons why Southern California Edison has installed 3,500 miles of overhead wire with a protective coating since it began installations in late 2018.”
So that’s 3,500 miles versus 19 miles.
No, SCE says, that’s not fair.
“We plan to complete about 100 miles of undergrounding by 2025 to address the high risk presented by limited exit and entry points to communities, extreme potential consequences and other factors.”
So 3,500 versus 119.
After the Emerald Fire, Whalen sharpened his pencil and wrote a strongly worded letter.
“Through the Public Utilities Commission and the California Legislature, we’ve been pushing for mandates that require the utilities to underground utilities in Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones, which includes most of the City of Laguna Beach,” Whalen said in a press release. “This news that above ground power lines have caused another California wildfire in our own backyard is a wake-up call for all of us that the utilities need to underground now – no matter the cost. You can’t put a dollar amount on any life lost to wildfire.”
Again, for the soft-spoken Whalen, that was anger – and he was absolutely right. The problem is SCE is banking on a risk assessment analysis that says covered conductors are good enough.
Meanwhile, summarizing their recent trip to Sacramento, Whalen and Rounaghi believe this time there might be other financial options.
“I think the two most interesting meetings were with the governor’s office, and California Transportation Commission,” Whalen said. “There’s potentially a new grant program with the California Transportation Commission that we’re doing a lot of work on to see if we qualify.”
And then the rub.
“We’re still needing Edison to commit to a dollar amount,” he said. “I think they (CTC) still think it’s a great project. We just need to get Edison to commit, so we’re going to continue to work towards that.”
New to the game, Rounaghi put a good spin on it.
“Bob has been at this for almost 10 years trying to underground Laguna Canyon Road,” Rounaghi said. “I really appreciate Bob’s tenacity on this issue, and I’m very optimistic that we’re going to finally bring those power lines underground.”
Wait, why does this sound familiar? Oh right, July 3, 2015, when there was another fire in Laguna Canyon caused by SCE power lines.
“We can no longer risk the public safety of Laguna Beach by allowing above-ground utilities,” Mayor Bob Whalen said in a statement. “A major fire disaster caused by power lines is only a matter of time.”
Time, optimism, tenacity … words that don’t really mean much to fire victims.
