Horrific wildfires in California have dominated the news in recent years. We think of the heroic efforts of those who fight these fires, the torment of those who have lost family and homes and to the dangers of drought and climate change.
Katherine Blunt, an energy reporter for the Wall Street Journal who has covered the story of California wildfires in recent years, adds another element to the story: years of neglect by the Pacific Gas & Electric utility.
As PG&E prioritized profits, power lines—running through the woodlands of Northern California—were left to deteriorate. As Blunt reports in “California Burning,”, it was a rusted hook, purchased for 56 cents in 1921, that split in two that sparked the deadliest wildfire in California history.
Blunt relates the story of how PG&E, even when warned, some years before, by its own engineers of the dangers inherent in neglecting needed maintenance, failed to follow through.
Now PG&E is undertaking an alternative once considered prohibitive to stringing electrical wires through mountain forests. The utility has undertaken a program to start burying those lines—at a cost expected to top $20 billion.
As Blunt tells Steve Tarter, PG&E isn’t the only utility in the nation with aging infrastructure. The price of providing a critical service in a changing climate is likely to have to be paid by others.
