Post #3: What a shame...PG&E was one of the richest power companies around...
The reason they're rich, they don't put money into maintenance, they put in in their pocket.
Post #4: JW you are exactly precisely correct, peeps want to be served and then sue.
They are paying for a service. If you went to a brake shop and paid for new brakes and they didn't do anything and charged you for a brake job and you get out on the road and your brakes don't work, you hit a tree and wind up paralyzed, you wouldn't sue them?
Post #14: There is ONE group of people who's shoulders bear full responsibility for the catastrophic wildfires last year.
The extreme There is ONE group of people who's shoulders bear full responsibility for the catastrophic wildfires last year.
The extreme environmental groups have made it impossible to perform forest management profitably, to clear vegetation below and around power lines...to responsibly use herbacides(herbicides) to maintain fire breaks, ect.
Environmental groups have nothing to do with PG&E lack of maintenance.
Oh yeah, herbicides is the way to go.
Go buy a gallon of Round Up( Glyphosate), pour it in a bucket and stick you hand in it for a while and don't wash it off, What do you think will happen?
Herbicides kill everything, Frogs, butterflies, bees, everything that's sprayed dies a painful death.
"New Study Shows Roundup Kills Bees. The most widely sprayed herbicide in the world kills honeybees, according to a new report. Glyphosate, an herbicide and active ingredient in Monsanto's (now Bayer's) Roundup weed killer, targets enzymes long assumed to be found only in plants.
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/new-study-shows-roundup-kills-bees
Post #11: Granted, some of the wild fires over the last few years were caused by faulty equipment on PG&E's side. Most were due to poor forest management around the overhead lines. There is much blame to go around for that including Federal/State governments, private property owners as well as PG&E itself!
When I started with PG&E in 1968 the company upper management was made up of those who "came up through the ranks", lineman and engineers. By the time I retired 40 years later it was run by Bean Counters and Lawyers and much needed maintenance was "deferred" or just cancelled!!
SBR, I respect your input, as you are speaking with first hand knowledge.
But, all power companies have a right of way for their lines, that right of way includes a swath of land on either side of the lines that is a safety margin.
If the ROW is properly maintained, Then a fire should not affect the lines.
Here's how it's done:
You are right about the BC's, all they're looking at is how much money they can make.
More profit, more bonus for them.
That's the problem.
Post 27:
Does your power company have 125,000 miles of powerlines? Let me run that number by you again....125,000 miles.
Who pays for that 125,000 miles?
The customers, that's why they have to pay an electric bill.
This isn't a problem that happened yesterday.
Lack of maintenance has been going on for years.
But now, it's coming back to bite them in the butt.
Classic case of corporate greed.
Now, they are going bankrupt to either avoid or mitigate their losses and keep their money.
They should have to pay out all their money in the bank and sell their non essential assets and when they run out of that, they can pay with future profits.
All the people whose lives were ruined by PG&E deserve to be fairly compensated.
Post #7: It's not just California. How is the infrastructure in your neck of the woods?. You have cities where its not safe to drink the water, bridges on the verge of collapsing and roadways that will shake the screws out of your car. I was in China this year. I rode a train that ran 250 miles an hour. It's not just California, It's the whole country.
And That's my thoughts on this.
