Oregon’s Public Utility Commission (PUC) says its work “impacts every household throughout the state.”
The agency regulates landline telephone service providers, gas, electric, and certain water utilities in Oregon.
For utilities owned by the public like utility districts and cooperatives the PUC enforces safety standards but does not decide how much they can charge customers.
For other utilities the agency regulates safety and sets rates. Those include investor-owned natural gas and electric utilities, power companies including Portland General Electric (PGE), the state’s largest with nearly 900,000 customers, and Pacific Power, the second biggest, which has around 600,000.
Each year, the PUC reviews the electric companies’ vegetation management programs by conducting sample inspections of trimming operations to make sure they’re following regulations.
“These rules generally require actions to trim trees, clear around poles and lines, and to manage the vegetation in the utility’s right of way around their equipment,” Kandi Young, a spokeswoman for the PUC, said in an email. “It is important to note that the PUC’s rules do not address the challenges of identifying and removing dead or dangerous trees outside the utility’s right of way.”
The PUC’s website says, “Management of vegetation around power lines, utility poles, and substations is a critical part of system maintenance. A successful vegetation management program can help ensure reliability and mitigate risk.”
“We take (tree trimming) very seriously because it not only protects our power lines during periods like this,” PGE CEO Maria Pope said during a Feb. 18 briefing regarding hundreds of thousands of outages in the wake of a devastating winter storm. “But also during high fire danger times.”
Larry Bekkedahl, PGE’s vice president of grid architecture integration and system operations, called the storm “by far the most destructive ice event in 40 years.“
A PGE news release said, “Snow and ice on transmission lines as well as on trees and limbs that fell on power lines caused the vast majority of the damage and outages.”
On Feb. 20, PGE told Discrepancy Report it had replaced more than 480 poles in a week.
“Ninety-five percent of pole damage has resulted from ice-laden trees falling into our poles and other equipment, causing poles to fall and/or split,” Elizabeth Lattanner, a company spokeswoman, explained.
PGE’s website now says it issued more than 980 poles during the storm’s aftermath.
Regarding the utility’s vegetation management program, Andrea Platt, another company spokeswoman, said, “The data immediately at hand is that PGE has doubled spending since 2017 to $26 million in 2020.”
But last summer audits by the PUC, which Discrepancy Report obtained through a public records request, informed PGE and Pacific Power that their tree-trimming operations had problems. PGE’s, the agency said, were more serious.
“This report contains a ‘Warning’ indicating a vegetation program that appears to have serious deficiencies that are potentially system-wide,” PUC review documents told PGE on Aug. 28. “Long-term graph data indicates the number of tree and energized primary conductor contacts are approaching all-time highs. … Staff observed 719 locations where evidence existed of contact between vegetation and primary electrical conductors. The identified locations resulted in conservatively over 1,068 primary conductor vegetation contacts. … Additionally, Staff noted, it appears that minimum (legal) clearances … are not being maintained. Many trees, although not actively in contact with a conductor, had less than the minimum clearances prescribed by the administrative rule.”
In its reports about Pacific Power filed in July 2020, the PUC said, “The long-term data shows the company’s vegetation management program is not adequately addressing the issue of tree contacts. The number of tree and energized primary conductor contacts are disturbing. … Staff observed 373 locations where evidence existed of contact between vegetation and energized primary electrical conductors. … Similar to the results of a number of past audits; staff noted many trees, although not actively in contact with an energized conductor, had less than the minimum clearances prescribed by the administrative rule.”
Auditors told Pacific Power there were 504 locations where evidence existed of contact between vegetation and energized primary electrical conductors in 2019.
“Although the 2020 numbers indicate a decrease from the 2019 review,” the PUC said, “the number of tree-energized primary conductor contacts are too high considering the high-profile wildfire mitigation efforts and identified fire hazards in the western United States.”
The 2020 report issued Pacific Power its second formal “caution” notice.
“A ‘CAUTION’ indicates a vegetation management program that needs improvement to ensure safety compliance,” the PUC said. “A ‘WARNING’ is indicative of program deficiencies of a more serious, potentially system-wide, nature.”
Enforcement
“As an agency with a small staff,” Young explained, “we have three individuals dedicated to conducting National Electrical Safety Code compliance audits and vegetation management program audits for nearly 40 electric utilities and all communication companies across the state.”
Auditors require the companies to submit documentation confirming they’ve corrected the citations, which are called “probable violations.”
“The PUC relies on confirmation from the utilities that the corrections have been made and staff may request photographic proof and often conducts verification audits as necessary,” Young explained. “The PUC has the authority to seek enforcement actions including civil penalties if a utility fails to meet the minimum requirements, Additionally, the PUC can review the conduct of a utility and exclude costs from customer rates if those costs are related to unsafe or unreasonable actions.”
For most of their 2020 citations, PGE and Pacific Power were required to submit documentation this year.
But both companies were told to submit reports last fall for two categories of probable violations that are considered potential public safety hazards, readily climbable trees that are too close to or touching a primary conductor (39 probable violations for PGE, 20 for Pacific Power), and vines engulfing poles, touching or near primary conductors creating a climbing hazard (14 probable violations for PGE, five for Pacific Power).
Young said PGE submitted documentation four days before its Oct. 30, 2020 deadline claiming all of the hazard citations were corrected. The company stated 100% of the locations were successfully trimmed and cleared.
“PGE did not submit photo proof,” Young said.
An audit of eight select locations the PUC conducted on March 9 after receiving several questions from Discrepancy Report said the agency was “satisfied with the efforts PGE has made to date” in correcting probable violations at those sites.
Young said Pacific Power, which is owned by PacifiCorp, reported correcting its probable violations and submitted photos of its work.
“But this is not a requirement by rule or requested by safety staff,” she told Discrepancy Report.
Pacific Power’s final deadline for responding to the rest of the probable violations was Feb. 28.
“Recently our audit team did conduct a verification audit at select locations and found the utility had successfully made the corrections,” Young explained on March 10.
PGE’s final due date is April 30.
Interactive map shows locations where Oregon’s Public Utility Commission (PUC) says probable violations by Portland General Electric (PGE) and Pacific Power were cited as part of annual vegetation program reviews in 2020.
Investigation and past research
“Once the restoration efforts are complete, the PUC will dedicate resources to evaluate this series of weather events and the resulting outages that impacted so many Oregonians,” Young said on Feb. 24.
Oregon State Climatologist Larry O’Neill called the ice accumulation from Feb. 11 to 14 “historically significant, I would say probably a once in a 1-2 generation type of event (~40 years).”
The storm was blamed for an unprecedented number of power outages in Oregon. Utility companies said it knocked out electricity to more than a half-million people, including over 420,000 PGE customers and more than 80,000 customers of Pacific Power. PGE said nearly a quarter of its customers experienced multiple outages. Many lost power for several days. Tens of thousands of people remained without electricity after more than a week.
Though it’s harrowing, on a national level the situation is nothing new. Devastating ice storms and outages have been studied in other parts of the country for years.
“Tree branches that break and limbs that sag from ice accumulation cause the majority of electric power outages and utility damage (during ice storms),” researchers from the University of Wisconsin and the University of Illinois said in the second edition of “Trees and Ice Storms,“ a 2006 study funded by the U.S. Forest Service. “Regular utility right-of-way inspection and tree trimming is important to minimize outages.”
“The greatest effect of ice storms is power outages, which last for up to a month in the most severe cases,” according to a 2007 analysis by meteorologist David Call, then a researcher at Syracuse University. “The risk of outage could be reduced with stronger, more consistent tree-trimming standards.”
In Michigan, regulators found that inadequate tree-trimming by utilities was a significant factor in widespread power outages following an ice storm in December 2013 according to Energy News Network.
“Staff believes that vegetation management is the best tool available to reduce the number of outages per year,” the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) said in a report on the storm. “Consumers Energy reported decreases in outage frequency in work areas of 30% after line clearing work was performed. … Due to the fact that Consumers Energy identifies vegetation falling into utility equipment as the leading culprit in outage causation, staff believes that the practice of inconstant vegetation management expenditures is imprudent given its reliability implications and the cost implications associated with deferred maintenance. Failure to stay ‘on-cycle’ in terms of vegetation management may have been a contributing factor to the number of tree-related instances in the December ice storms.”
A spokesman for Consumers Energy said the company has since improved its on-cycle vegetation management program, nearly tripling its budget since 2013.
Federal regulators made findings similar to those of the Michigan Public Service Commission in a study of outages during a severe snowstorm in the Northeast in October 2011.
“The vast majority of transmission line outages — fifty-five out of seventy-four, or nearly 80% — were caused when snow-weighted leafy trees contacted transmission lines,” said the report by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. “All but two of these trees were healthy. Twenty-five percent of these trees were located within the utility’s right of way, and therefore, were likely within the utilities’ rights to maintain.”
Tree health
PGE and Pacific Power said they are seeing faster tree growth in some areas due to rising temperatures, according to The Oregonian, and longer growing seasons. Prolonged droughts and bug infestation in other zones are undermining the health of trees, the paper said, in or bordering their rights of way.
“There’s no question that large swathes of Oregon have been in a prolonged drought,” Jim Gersbach, a spokesman for Oregon’s Dept. of Forestry, told Discrepancy Report in response to the claims reportedly made by the companies. “Longer growing seasons (warmer springs with the absence of late frosts and warmer falls with later onset of freezing weather) would certainly give trees more time to grow. And increased temperatures up to a point can benefit plant growth. Beyond certain very high temperatures though, trees may be forced to shut down certain processes because of heat stress. So the question would be at what point do rising temperatures above historic norms that benefit plant growth intersect with those temperatures that exceed what trees can tolerate and still grow. And of course, growth requires soil moisture. So if rising temperatures are also accompanied by drought, the benefit of the rising temperatures may be canceled out or mitigated by the lack of available groundwater to support tree growth.”
As for bug infestations, Gersbach said Oregon is experiencing an outbreak of bronze birch borer beetles, which have been killing birch trees in much of the state.
“Portland did one of the most comprehensive inventories of its street trees from 2011-2018,” Gersbach explained, “and it shows 2.9% of the street trees were birch at the time of the inventory. … Birches were the 11th most common street tree in Portland.”
Gersbach said results would probably be somewhat similar in many western Oregon communities.
“There are also reported declines in western red-cedar and bigleaf maple which have drawn concern from foresters and the public,” Gersbach said. “Potential causes are being investigated.”
Expanding the right of way?
PGE CEO Maria Pope addressed concerns over tree-trimming at the outage briefing on Feb. 18.
“What happened in this one-in-a-40-year storm is the trees absolutely fell over onto our lines and the level of damage of flying limbs was way outside of what we call the right of way,” she said. “We could be trimming and taking out more trees and expanding the right of way in the future. But clearly, that’s a discussion that we’ll have to have with many stakeholders going forward.”
Oregon’s Department of Forestry estimates about 2.8 million residents, around 66% of the state’s estimated current population, live in cities or areas that actively manage their urban forests. The rest either live in rural areas or cities or communities that don’t actively manage urban forests according to ODF’s standards.
Kristin Ramstad, manager of ODF’s Urban and Community Forestry Assistance Program, told Discrepancy Report, “For federal and agency reporting purposes … ODF tracks the number of Oregon cities that have (1) Professionally trained urban forestry staff; (2) A public tree ordinance; (3) An ordinance-designated and city-recognized tree advisory committee (i.e., a city tree board); and (4) An inventory-based urban forestry management plan. … Incorporated Oregon cities that have at least two of these attributes are designated as ‘actively managing’ their urban forests. Ninety-two of 241 incorporated Oregon cities (38 percent) meet these criteria. … The cities that are included in this analysis range from Portland and most of the metro-area cities to some of the smallest cities in the state, and everything in between.”
Several unincorporated areas also meet the standard, according to Ramstad.
ODF receives no state funding for its urban forestry program. Since 1991, it’s been paid for entirely with federal grant money. The program can afford fewer than two full-time staff members according to Ramstad.
A U.S. Forest Service (USFS) spokeswoman told Discrepancy Report the agency gave ODF $363,000 for its urban and community forestry program in 2020.
Cities and local governments generally have to raise their own money to take care of their trees.
“Portland Parks & Recreation (PP&R)’s urban forestry division is largely supported by the city’s general fund tax dollars,” said PP&R spokesman Mark Ross. “The division collects various regulatory fees, plus payments that partially compensate for trees removed under development (known as ‘mitigation’) which cover some tree planting and young tree care costs. PP&R’s urban forestry division also at times has received small grants, such as from the U.S. Forest Service, for specific projects but otherwise no federal or state funding for its operations.”
“It is important to understand that ODF-UCF (Oregon Department of Forestry’s Urban and Community Forestry Assistance Program) has no regulatory authority AT ALL,” Ramstad explained in an email. “We cannot, nor do we try to, tell cities ‘what to do.’ We simply offer guidance.”
Ramstad said the program also consults utility companies.
“We disseminate best management practices information about vegetation management around power lines, but we do not work shoulder to shoulder with utility crews,” she said. “ODF-UCF administers the Arbor Day Foundation’s Tree Line USA program. Currently, only Pacific Power is certified in that program in Oregon, but other Oregon utilities have been recognized in the past.”
Underground power lines
Burying power lines to avoid problems caused by inclement weather and downed trees may sound like a rational solution, but it’s an expensive one according to multiple utility companies and researchers.
The California utility firm Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) estimates it costs approximately $3 million per mile to convert underground electric distribution lines from overhead. Researchers from the Edison Electric Institute found that burying above-ground electric distribution systems can cost up to $5 million a mile in urban areas.
PG&E says in some scenarios, underground infrastructure can provide improved reliability during storms.
“However, underground lines are not immune to weather damage and are vulnerable to equipment issues, lightning strikes, flooding, earthquakes, and excavation damage by a third party,” PG&E’s website says. “When underground systems are damaged, locating fault areas and undertaking excavation processes can be time-consuming. Underground lines can take almost twice as long to repair when damage occurs.”
Michigan’s Public Service Commission estimated converting overhead lines to underground would cost substantially less, though found the operation would still be too expensive.
“Replacing existing overhead lines with underground lines will cost approximately $1 million per mile, on average, or about ten times what it costs to install overhead power lines,” the MPSC wrote in its report on the December 2013 ice storm. “Staff found that distribution rates could increase 80-125% if all overhead lines were replaced with an underground distribution system. … Staff also found that if a group of customers wanted to underground their electric distribution system, the agreement with the utility to perform underground work should contain provisions allocating a significant portion of the increased costs to those customers receiving the local benefits, so that all of the costs are not transferred to the entire system’s rate payers. Moreover, should a problem with the underground system occur, the duration of a customer’s average outage time would increase exponentially. This report found that undergrounding for the sake of reliability does not appear to be economically justified.”
