Oct. 15
The Los Angeles Times on California power outages and fires:
Last year, state officials changed the law to allow power companies to be more aggressive shutting down electrical lines in areas where strong, dry winds were predicted so that even if they were downed, they wouldn’t spark a fire. The idea was that the outages would be used only as a last resort and that, ultimately, a little bit of pain and inconvenience was worth avoiding another deadly wildfire. Nearly all the deadliest fires over the last 20 years have been blamed on electrical lines and equipment.
The state’s two largest utilities - Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison - employed that preventive move in a big way last week, plunging millions of people into the dark from Humboldt to Ventura counties, bungling communications with the public and prompting questions about whether the weather in the end had justified such an extreme reaction. The PG&E shutdowns were staggeringly broad in scope, affecting hundreds of hospitals, thousands of homebound ill and infirm Californians, and hundreds of thousands of students whose schools were temporarily closed. All this by a company that has lagged badly on its tree-trimming efforts and other fire safety programs.
Now that the winds have died down, state officials should hold utilities executives to account for answers. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday asked the Public Utilities Commission to undertake an immediate review of PG&E’s outage of 738,000 customers. And it should do so, ideally, before the Santa Ana and Diablo winds return.
The review should include Edison’s outages as well. Edison was much less aggressive, shutting down power to only 24,113 customers at the peak, but the outages were still disruptive.
Among the questions that need answering is why the power was cut to some communities and not others. We know that shutting down power lines has ripple effects, but without explanation, the outages felt random. Also, why were the utilities not better prepared to communicate with customers about what was coming? Edison and PG&E had been working with the PUC for more than a year to hammer out rules governing “public safety power shutdowns.” Yet last week, both had website problems when customers logged on to find out if they were on the outage list. Honestly, these two utilities collectively serve most of California. How could they not have foreseen this demand for information?
But the most important question to be answered is whether the outages accomplished anything. PG&E’s equipment didn’t start any fires last week, but that might have been the case even if the lights had stayed on. Meanwhile, thousands of Southern Californians had their power cut, but the power continued to flow through lines at the ignition point of the Saddleridge fire near Sylmar. It’s still too early to say if those live wires caused the fire, but Edison reported that they were malfunctioning.
Newsom has called on PG&E to offer a $100 credit to residential customers and $250 to businesses left in the dark last week. That’s a nice gesture, but we think it would be even better if people could feel confident that the pre-emptive blackouts were actually making people safer.
___
Oct. 15
The San Diego Union-Tribune on bill pushing back school start times forcing similar employer action:
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s smart decision to sign a bill that will push back public middle school start times to at least 8 a.m. and high school start times to at least 8:30 a.m. - except in some rural communities - is a win for families, even if it may not seem like it. Surveys show most middle school students and nearly all high school students don’t get enough sleep. This lack of sufficient rest correlates with academic struggles and higher rates of depression, drug use and auto accidents. As the first state with such a law, California will be a model for the nation.
One obvious issue? The law will create headaches for parents who can’t drop off their kids much later because of work obligations. This means that schools will have to prepare for students to be dropped off before school begins. Students shouldn’t sit and wait outside schools, especially in late fall and winter, in the dark. School doors will still have to open early to allow some students access.
An even better solution is for employers to let workers with kids have later start times themselves, and either work later in the day or have other flexibility in their shifts. Especially at a time when many jobs are unfilled because of a tight job market, helping workers and their families like this, when possible, should be a priority for California employers.
___
Oct. 15
The Sacramento Bee on how to improve canopy and public health:
We often plant trees as a symbolic gesture. We plant them on Earth Day in honor of clean air and sustainability. We also plant trees to commemorate people and events.
But trees do more than provide shade and improve landscapes. They are also critical to public health.
In Sacramento, which the American Lung Association named fifth worst U.S. city for air quality and where temperatures increasingly reach triple-digit highs, we must take the importance of trees seriously.
An investigation by Sacramento Bee reporter Michael Finch II reveals a vast inequality in Sacramento. Wealthier neighborhoods have a lush canopy of trees while poorer neighborhoods generally lack them.
A color-coded map of Sacramento’s tree coverage shows darker shades of green toward the city’s center, in neighborhoods like East Sacramento, Land Park and parts of midtown. The deeper the green, the denser the foliage. Lower-income neighborhoods on the edges of the city, like Meadowview, Del Paso Heights and Fruitridge, are devoid of trees.
Those neighborhoods, by having less tree cover, are more susceptible to the threat of extreme heat - and Sacramento is getting hotter.
The county is expected to see an average annual number of 19 to 31 100-degree plus days by 2050, according to a 2017 county-commissioned report. That’s compared to an average of four three-digit temperature days a year between 1961 and 1990. How hot it gets will depend on how well governments curb fossil fuel use and slow global warming.
Higher temperatures mean declining air quality and increased risk of heat death. Heat also creates conditions that lead to the buildup of ground-level ozone, a pollutant known to irritate lungs.
Ozone is especially bad for people with asthma, the very old and very young, and people who work outside. The Bee’s investigation also reveals that neighborhoods without tree cover have higher rates of asthma.
That’s why planting trees is so important to protect health and adapt for climate change.
“Trees help combat unseen hazards to human health like ozone and particle pollution. They can help lower street-level temperatures near schools and bus stops where some of the most vulnerable like children and the elderly frequent most,” writes Finch.
The Sacramento City Council has an opportunity to remedy our city’s unequal tree canopy cover when it finalizes updates to the city’s Urban Forest Master Plan early next year. The plan needs to prioritize areas that currently lack trees.
Advocates for these neighborhoods worry they’ll be left behind again. Cindy Blain, executive director of the nonprofit California ReLeaf, accused the city of having “no sense of urgency” around the issue of unequal tree cover.
The city’s urban forester, Kevin Hocker, acknowledged the disparity but raised doubts about the city’s ability to plant in certain places.
“We know in general that we can plant more trees but in some areas of town - due to their design or the way they’re configured - opportunities to plant trees don’t exist,” he said.
Despite any challenges in the way of evening out tree cover, there are also opportunities in the form of grassroots community efforts for the city to lean into.
In Del Paso Heights, the Del Paso Heights Growers’ Alliance has already been working to plant hundreds of trees.
Alliance organizer Fatima Malik, a member of the city parks and community enrichment commission, said she wants to partner with the city “to help them do their job better” planting and caring for trees.
Other neighborhoods also have tree planting and care efforts, sometimes in coordination with Sacramento Tree Foundation. Residents go out and plant trees and care for them without the city getting involved at all. The city should look for creative ways to support existing efforts so they may cover more areas with less tree cover.
People are willing to help. The new master plan for trees must make full use of that.
The City Council has a duty to give residents their best shot at a healthy life. It can do this by prioritizing new tree planting and ongoing tree care for neighborhoods with fewer canopies.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.