Just weeks after the fatal Eaton fire ignited near three Southern California Edison transmission towers, the utility quietly changed its internal policy regarding how crews ground Idl’s electric pylons.
At the time, this change received little attention. It is mainly because early suspicions about the cause of the flames focused on two active transmission towers in Eton Canyon.
However, in recent weeks speculation about the origin of the fire has moved to the third unused Idol Send Tower for over 50 years.
Despite these revelations, Edison in Southern California (and the state commission tasked with regulating utilities) refused to reveal how Edison grounds the Idle Transmission Tower or what prompted the company to make changes after crews were allowed to inspect the hillside where the flames exploded.
The California Public Utilities Commission ignored questions and rejected a request for public records from the Los Angeles Times regarding Edison’s actions. This request could help shed light on what officials learned during the inspection and what could have caused hell that killed 18 people.
The agency is not exempt from rejecting requests required under California’s public records laws. Instead, the committee said no responsive documents are available at this time and instructed the Times to resubmit the request within nine months. The agency spokesman did not respond to questions about why.
However, California’s public records law does not allow agencies to delay disclosure for several months. Instead, you must respond within 10 days of receiving a request for a public record.
The Act allows agents to request expansion, but states that they should be within 14 days, except for “unusual circumstances.”
Loretta Lynch, former president of CPUC from 2000 to 2002, said the documents should be published.
“They should be fully available,” she said in an interview. “They should submit these reports. Otherwise, why would we have a CPUC from the start?”
Companies such as Edison, who openly criticized the committee for its close ties with utility services, said Lynch often relies on the CPUC to protect documents from the public. In many cases, businesses said they require public interest documents to be tagged as “business confidential” and not to be published.
CPUC denied the Times’ record request on March 10th. The Times asked the agency to review the decision four days later. Multiple calls and messages to the Media Relations department clarifying the request to the Commission’s legal department and why the record was denied or why the reason was not cited in response to a request from the state’s public records laws, have been unanswered for weeks.
The Times contacted the CPUC for Friday’s comment on this article. CPUC notified the Times Monday that the document request has resumed for consideration.
Edison also refuses to make the document public. The company also refused to answer certain questions about the manual, including those that prompted changes or those that involve changes regarding the Idol Tower, such as those currently being scrutinized in the Eaton Fire Investigation.
An Edison spokesman called it an internal document.
“After reviewing the manual, I realized that the language is not as clear as it is for grounding lattice steel structures, and in the spirit of continuous improvement, I made changes to make it even more clear.”
Transmission towers must be grounded or carefully connected to the Earth in order to safely dissipate energy from lightning strikes and voltage surges.
Another spokesman for Edison on Thursday disagreed with the manual being characterized as “secret” and said the company did not keep it secret and submitted it to the state commission.
“This document was submitted to the CPUC and rather reflects a dedicated approach to improving safety standards,” said spokesman Kathleen Dunleevi.
As a private company, Edison does not need to publish documents. However, the lawyer who sued the company for a possible role in the Eton fire criticized the decision, claiming it was against the company’s promise of transparency. The document, they say, can shed light on the company’s response to disasters.
“Here, they suggest that the company has made some changes to underlying practices that could be at the core of this case, but refused to tell anyone what they did,” Eli Wade-Scott, partner at Edelson PC, wrote in an email. “If SCE couldn’t properly ground these idol lines that had been sitting there for 50 years, it was a disaster waiting to happen. And they have to answer the ju umpire.”
Edison is currently facing many fire lawsuits and faces the potential role of its electrical equipment. Investigators with the Los Angeles County Fire Department and California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention have yet to determine the official cause of the fire. Edison is deploying crews and workers to inspect and test equipment overlooking Eton Canyon.
However, several law firms have hired their own team of fire investigators and electricians to investigate the cause and find clues. Their attention has focused in recent weeks on Idol Tower and grounded wires that are about four feet exposed on steep hillsides.
“The tower was not properly grounded,” said Alexander Robertson, an attorney for Robertson and Associates LLP, who filed the lawsuit against Edison. “The cable is to be buried deep in the ground.”
Although the towers and lines have not been used since 1971, Edison officials and lawyers are considering the possibility that the Idol Tower and Line could have been reproduced in some way, sending electricity to the equipment and increasing the possibility that exposed ground wires caused fire.
In a February 6 submission to CPUC, Edison said he is investigating the possibility that the device caused the fire, including “some degree of possibility that the line or its grounding may be related to the cause of the fire.”
In the footnote, the filing states that the company has changed how the company grounds the Idol Line and its manual, particularly the section that references the grounding of the Idol Tower.
“SCE is taking immediate steps to further strengthen and standardize grounding practices regarding idle lines, including updating SCE’s sending operations and maintenance policies and procedures,” reads the footnote.
An Edison spokesman declined to say whether it prompted the change or whether it was connected to the company’s inspections of the three towers after the fire.
Eisenhauer refused to answer questions about whether the manual’s language change has changed to how it is now required to ground the idle transmission tower.
CPUC spokesman Terrie Prosper confirmed that Edison updated its outbound operation and maintenance policy on January 27th, 20 days after the fire began and 11 days after Edison Crews visited the area to inspect it. According to Prosper, the changes were provided to the committee, Prosper said.
This change has updated the four-month version of the manual, which outlines the company’s maintenance and procedures. Its previous version was dated September 27, 2024, Prosper said in an email.
In the February 6 CPUC filing, no other changes were made to Edison’s manual, so Edison officials refused to say whether it was the only change to the manual.
In a recent interview with the Times, Edison International CEO Pedro Pizzaro said the company’s equipment could have caused the fire.
“It’s certainly possible that,” he said. “As we continued our research, I promised to be transparent with the public.”
Michael Aguirre, a former federal prosecutor who sued the CPUC, said having a public regulatory record is a constant and difficult battle.
“There’s a secret blanket for documents flowing through the CPUC and you’ll never get to the public domain,” he said.
Documents are often tagged as unique, he said, and agencies, like government branches like governors, have been exempt from the state’s public records laws.
An Edison spokesman does not say whether the document holds its own information or is labeled as “business confidential” will not interfere with its release.
Dozens of lawsuits filed against Edison have raised many theories about how electrical equipment caused the fire, including the possibility of an arc, allegations that Edison was unable to maintain vegetation in the area and increased risk.
It is unclear whether Idol Tower could provide energy, but lawyer Robertson said investigators are considering possible guiding.
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