Published
4 years agoon
SAN FRANCISCO — To prevent wildfires, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. should re-inspect its entire electric grid and cut off power during certain wind conditions regardless of the inconvenience to customers or loss of profit, a U.S. judge proposed Wednesday.
Alsup is overseeing a criminal sentence against PG&E stemming from a deadly explosion of one of the utility’s gas lines in 2010. The blast in the San Francisco Bay Area killed eight people.
A U.S. judge in 2017 put PG&E on five years of probation following its conviction on pipeline safety charges. Alsup asked PG&E in November whether any requirements of the sentence might be implicated if its equipment ignited a wildfire. The judge noted that the sentence required that PG&E not engage in any additional crimes.
He also asked the utility to explain any role it may have played in a massive wildfire that destroyed the town of Paradise and killed at least 86 people.
Investigators have not determined the cause of the wildfire that began Nov. 8 but speculation has centered on PG&E, which reported an outage around the time and place the fire ignited.
Alsup noted in Wednesday’s order that state fire investigators have determined PG&E caused eighteen wildfires in 2017, twelve of which they referred for possible criminal prosecution.
The judge proposed PG&E remove or trim all trees that could fall onto its power lines, poles or equipment in high-wind conditions and document its inspections and work. He accused the utility of a “history of falsification of inspection reports.”
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