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Let's hope this thread is short on Bay Area Fire Season

BillSmith said:
GAJ- FEMA says 6 months to clean burned sites which sounds way too optimistic.

You are in Santa Rosa. Is that work even done yet? Fires in our area were post those in yours. Nowhere near 'cleaned' here.

Six months? Not based on the LA carnage I've seen in the media.
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FEMA and their contractors came and went but it most certainly wasn't "done" in a year.

Basically taking the top I forget how much of the topsoil and everything else from a burn site using bulldozers etc.
 
Agent Orange said:
This is only really feasible with new construction. SF tried doing it in the 90s and while they managed to underground a few blocks, it got too costly.
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Yep, and that is why cities require it with new construction or significant remodels.

City of San Anselmo is one of them.

Since they are rebuilding whole neighborhoods, the opportunity to underground power lines has never been better.
 
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Watched a vid last nite of local firefighters sifting thru ashes of his recently burned home.
No hasmat suit, resperator, goggles, gloves, nuthin', but bragging about finding a wedding ring.

Special permission ?? Way out of line from what happened to a buddy of mine.
No contact with any ashes, as toxic waste, no admittance until fully cleaned, no recovery of anything.
 
tzrider said:
The irony being, this leads to undergrounding lines only in places where there is no more fuel. :laughing
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Yeah but, maybe now PG&E can defer maintenance for another 25 years and not torch multiple cities in the process?
 
But, in 15 plus years, when the native vegetation has grown back, the lines will still be buried and there will be lower risk of fires.

You can't think in terms of today, you have to take a longer view on it for progress.
 
Buried lines would have made no difference in the LA firestorm.

Thus far the ignition source related too Socal Edison seems to be transmission lines in at least one case.
 
Wouldn't buried lines remove the need to turn power off during high winds?

I'm guessing that burying lines would actually be less expensive than putting up poles and all of the line pulling involved with re-wiring all of the neighborhoods. Does anybody know the costs of each option?
 
I can't recall if it's Grass Valley, or Nevada City, but one portion of town is buried and one is not, so there's a line where businesses on one side of the street are down and closed during a PSPS while the other side is rockin' along.
 
Climber said:
But, in 15 plus years, when the native vegetation has grown back, the lines will still be buried and there will be lower risk of fires.
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Where the fires are starting, in the back country, undergronding lines is near impossible in any great capacity.
 
Holeshot said:
Where the fires are starting, in the back country, undergronding lines is near impossible in any great capacity.
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That is something relatively new at least for PGE; planned power outages.

Authority for it was only passed in 2012 by the CPUC.
 
Holeshot said:
Where the fires are starting, in the back country, undergronding lines is near impossible in any great capacity.
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What are the limiting factors to make it near impossible?

Seems like the proper machinery would make it much easier to accomplish, I've seen some truly amazing machines out there in action, some for stripping and removing trees. I'm not buying that American ingenuity couldn't come up with a machine couldn't be built that would make it pretty easy to lay underground lines.
 
Oh they can do it but it will raise already out of control pricing.

www.utilitydive.com

California regulators approve new program to expedite power line undergrounding

The program allows utilities with at least 250,000 customers to submit a 10-year undergrounding plan to the California Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety, which must approve or reject it within nine months.
www.utilitydive.com www.utilitydive.com

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Does anybody else think that those figures are intended to elevate their profits?

$6.1 Million seems to be very, very expensive if they have the right equipment, it seems like they're positioning themselves to profit enormously if 'forced' to bury the lines.

What would be useful to the discussion is the cost to put up poles and string the wires, wouldn't the lines be a sizeable portion of the costs?
 
Killroy1999 said:
Yep, and that is why cities require it with new construction or significant remodels.

City of San Anselmo is one of them.

Since they are rebuilding whole neighborhoods, the opportunity to underground power lines has never been better.
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Newscum, in another grand display of his wisdom, surely will state he will waive the requirement for those digging to call 811 and get it scouted & pre-approved. What could possibly go wrong?
 
Climber said:
Does anybody else think that those figures are intended to elevate their profits?

$6.1 Million seems to be very, very expensive if they have the right equipment, it seems like they're positioning themselves to profit enormously if 'forced' to bury the lines.

What would be useful to the discussion is the cost to put up poles and string the wires, wouldn't the lines be a sizeable portion of the costs?
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the cost quoted wasn’t for putting up new lines, it was for moving existing overhead lines underground. they are doing that throughout our area. because much of the divide we live on (long strip of land situated between two deep river canyons) is solid granite, they have to trench channels in roads, lay cable and then repave. very expensive. and just as an aside (costs that aren’t necessarily obvious), the poles they are taking out are hazardous waste (creosote soaked logs).
 
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