EDITORIAL: The utilities and the California wildfires
This week, in the awful present of the ongoing Woolsey and Camp fires, market forces agreed. On Monday,
Those plunges came after our sister papers in the
Before the blaze, a business owner in the town of Pulga near the Camp fire's origin showed reporters an email from the utility saying that workers had to fix a sparking problem on a nearby power line.
Last Thursday, SoCal Edison sent an alert to the
Both utilities say they are cooperating fully in the investigations into how both blazes began, and we're sure they will continue to. Saying that it's the shareholders, who knew there was risk when they became investors, should pay the price rather than ratepayers who just need the electricity, isn't to be mean-spirited. It's just a fact of economic life.
And it's also not about a blame game. While California's giant investor-owned utilities may have equipment that sparks wildfires, the fact is that they have had power lines into remote rural and exurban areas for over a century. It is not their fault that brush after seven years of drought has turned into kindling all over the state. While they need to continue to dramatically increase the safety features in their lines, poles and transformers, it can't happen overnight. If they will have to pay reparations here, we're all in this new fire present and future together as Californians.
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