SCE and PG&E Are Both Incompetent And Dangerous – A KBUU Editorial

It’s New Year’s Day … and today most of the KBUU news is a radio station editorial … reflecting this news analysis from KBUU radio.

California news media are reporting about possible murder charges against the Northern California utility … Pacific Gas and Electric.

What does that mean for Malibu???

Actually .. a lot.

P G & E is the Northern California utility company that is already on federal probation … the company has been found by a federal judge to have a criminal lack of safety … related to natural gas explosions on a section if gas pipe that never should have been placed in service.

The company was caught falsifying safety data — even after a federal judge had put it on probation after the deadly San Bruno gas explosion, which killed 8 people.

Last year … P G & E’s overhead power lines likely caused the Napa and Santa Rosa fires … which burned 44 people to death.

And this fall … P G and E is likely responsible for this year’s Paradise Fire … which killed 86 people.

Evidence points to a culture of poor maintenance at P G & E … leading to one deadly power line fiasco after another.

A federal court judge has asked state prosecutors what should be done.

And Xavier Becerra … the state’s Attorney General … says the company may have been so negligent … that it should have reasonably known its equipment would cause deadly fires.

And if investigators can find that company officials knew this … he says the company might be charged with manslaughter … or maybe murder.

Interesting … but again … what does this have to do with Malibu???

Plenty … just look at Southern California Edison … S C E … the Edison Company.

Let’s look at the Southern California Edison track record. Lawyers representing burned out landowners say it was S C E equipment likely caused last year’s Thomas Fire … and the resulting mudflows in Montecito … which killed 44 people.

Like P G and E … it apparently has been operating its power lines dangerously … with deadly consequences.

Unlike P G and E … Edison does not have a deadly track record in the natural gas area.

Edison does not sell natural gas.

But it does run a nuclear power plant.

So let’s look at that.

Edison has what can be at best described as a terrible record in the way it has operated its nuclear power plant … 70 miles down the coast from Malibu.

A bit of nuclear history.

In the early 2000s … Southern California Edison decided to supersize its pair of aging nuclear power plants … which were nearing the end of functionality at San Onofre.

Without doing the proper engineering studies … S C E ordered two replacement nuclear generators that were significantly bigger than the old ones.

S C E would get to keep the extra electricity to sell on the open market … the ratepayers would bear the billions to rebuilld.

When the supersized nuclear generators were turned on … the engineering mistakes became obvious.

The San Onofre plant literally shook itself apart.

There was a small radioactive leak.

S C E shut them down permanently.

S C E then made a secret deal with the California Public Utilities Commission president …. which shifted the 5 billion dollar engineering mistake to the S C E ratepayers.

This secret deal got uncovered and fell apart … but we ratepayers are still on the hook for more than 4 billion dollars for the S C E engineering screwups.

But S C E still is in charge of the nuclear cleanup at San Onofre.

And that nuclear cleanup has been botched by S C E … leading to citations form the industry-friendly regulators at the U-S Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

A 50-ton canister containing highly radioactive spent fuel assemblies got stuck as S C E contractors tried to move it. 

Last summer … a low ranking San Onofre employee stood up at a community meeting in San Clemente and blew a very loud whistle.

The man said S C E has never trained its workers in safety … as they have mishandled 50 ton canisters of nuclear waste at the San Onofre storage area.

The federal inspectors agreed … and said they are “concerned about apparent weaknesses in management oversight” by S C E at its nuclear dump.

Federal inspectors found that Edison experienced a similar misalignment problem in July and failed to figure out what went wrong or develop corrective actions to prevent it from happening again.

Edison failed to properly train its nuclear workers responsible for transferring the spent fuel from cooling pools to a dry storage area

The federal inspectors also found that Edison did not properly supervise transfer operations, nor did the utility report the Aug. 3 incident to the NRC within 24 hours as required by law.

An Edison safety official testified in public last month … these are his words ….

“This event was unacceptable.

“We failed to provide the oversight, and the contractor failed. 

“We own this and (the contractor) owns this.”

Those are the words of Edison’s vice president of decommissioning and chief nuclear officer, Tom Palmisano.

S C E admits it has its own safety culture problem.

Michael Aguirre… a crusading San Diego lawyer … is asking the FBI to look into safety failings at S C E’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

Again … these are nuclear accidents happening at an S C E plant on the Orange County-San Diego County line … about 50 miles from San Diego … 20 miles from Newport beach.

70 miles from Malibu.

Let that sink in for a second.

Southern California Edison … which likely caused fires that burned from Ventura to Santa Barbara last year … and from Chatsworth to Point Dume this year … killing 47 people… has just been cited by the feds for mishandling nuclear waste just down the coast.

Federal inspectors have found a failed safety system at the nuke plant.

To recap:

Edison has demonstrated over past decades a company culture that has covered up evidence about its shoddy power poles.

When fires have broken out … Edison has hidden evidence and failed to cooperate with state investigators.

S C E admitted to that after the 2007 Malibu Canyon fire … when Edison got caught overloading power poles and as company policy hiding the cause.

And this summer … Edison got caught by a whistleblower mishandling nuclear waste at the nuclear power plant … 70 miles down the coast from Malibu.

That is the same nuclear power plant that Edison wrecked in an ill-fated effort to rebuild and expand it.

In the next few months … we are going to hear legislators in Northern California calling for the break up or state takeover of Pacific Gas & Electric.

That company may even be charged with murder.

Southern California Edison is one year behind in this process … but no less legally culpable … then P G & E.

Like P G & E … S C E has demonstrated a corporate culture of protecting shareholders at the expense of the public safety.

The model for both companies is broken.

P G & E and SCE are in the same boat.

It is up to Malibu residents to make voices heard loudly.

The incineration of Malibu was not the fault of the city.

It was not the fault of the county fire department.

It was caused by one entity … and one entity alone.

As California restructures P G & E … a statewide solution must be found.

We have the same problems with S C E… the same deadly problems.

This news analysis … and editorial … from KBUU radio.