Quiet Changes to Policies Made after Deadly CA Wildfires

Just weeks after the deadly Eaton fire ignited near three Southern California Edison transmission towers, the utility quietly changed an internal policy on how crews should ground idle electrical pylons.

The change attracted little attention at the time — due mostly to the fact that early suspicion about the cause of the blaze focused on two active transmission towers in Eaton Canyon.

But in recent weeks, speculation about the origin of the fire has shifted to a third idle transmission tower that had been unused for more than five decades.

Despite these revelations, Southern California Edison — and the state commission tasked with regulating utilities — have refused to disclose what changes Edison made to how it grounds idle transmission towers, or what prompted the company to make the change days after its crews were allowed to inspect the hillside where the blaze erupted.

The California Public Utilities Commission has ignored questions and denied a public records request from the Los Angeles Times regarding Edison's actions. The request could help shine a light on what officials have learned during their inspections, and what might have caused the inferno that killed 18 people.

The agency cited no exemption in denying the request, which is required under the California Public Records Act. Instead, the commission said responsive documents were not available at this time and told The Times to resubmit its request in nine months. A spokesperson for the agency did not respond to questions as to why.

However, the California Public Records Act does not allow agencies to delay disclosures for months. Instead, it requires them to respond within 10 days of getting a public records request.

The act allows agencies to request extensions, but states they should be no longer than 14 days except for "unusual circumstances."

Loretta Lynch, the former president of the CPUC from 2000 to 2002, said the documents should be released.

"They should be completely available," she said in an interview. "They should be filing these reports, otherwise, why do we have the CPUC to begin with?"

Lynch, who has openly criticized the commission for its close ties to utilities, said companies such as Edison often rely on the CPUC to keep documents from the public. Often, she said, companies will request that documents that would be of public interest be tagged as "business confidential" to keep them from being released.

The CPUC denied The Times' records request on March 10. The Times asked the agency to reconsider its decision four days later, noting the agency cited no reason to withhold the documents. The request to the commission's legal division, as well as multiple calls and messages to its media relations department seeking clarity as to why the records were being denied — or why no reason was cited as required by the state's public records law — went unanswered for weeks.

The Times reached out to the CPUC for comment Friday for this article. The CPUC notified The Times on Monday the document request had been reopened for consideration.

Edison has also declined to release the document publicly. The company also declined to answer questions as to what prompted the change, or what the change would entail when it came to idle towers such as the one now being scrutinized in the Eaton fire investigation.

A spokesperson for Edison referred to it as an internal document.

"After we reviewed the manual, we realized the language was not as clear as it could be for grounding idle lattice steel structures and, in the spirit of making continuous improvement, we made changes to make it more clear," said the spokesperson, David Eisenhauer.

Transmission towers must be grounded — or carefully connected to the earth — to safely dissipate energy from lightning strikes and voltage surges.

As a private company, Edison is not required to make the document public. However, attorneys who have sued the company for its possible role in the Eaton fire criticized the decision, arguing that it went against the company's promise of transparency. The document could shed light into the company's response to the disaster, they say.

"Here, they've hinted that the company made some change to grounding practices that could be at the core of this case, but refuse to tell anybody what they did," wrote Eli Wade-Scott, a partner at Edelson PC, in an email. "If SCE failed to properly ground these idle lines that have been sitting there for fifty years, that was a disaster waiting to happen — and they will have to answer for that to a jury."

Edison is now facing numerous lawsuits over the fire, and the possible role of its electrical equipment. Investigators with the Los Angeles County Fire Department and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection have yet to determine an official cause of the fire, and Edison has since deployed crews and workers to inspect and test the equipment overlooking Eaton Canyon.

But several law firms have hired their own team of fire investigators and electrical engineers to investigate the cause and look for clues. Their attention has, in recent weeks, focused on the idle tower, and a grounding wire that was exposed by about four feet in the steep hillside.

"The tower was not grounded properly," said Alexander Robertson, an attorney from the firm Robertson and Associates LLP, which has filed suit against Edison. "That cable is supposed to be buried deep into the ground."

Although the tower and line have not been in use since 1971, Edison officials and attorneys are looking at the possibility the idle tower and lines could have somehow been reenergized, sending electricity through the equipment and raising the possibility that the exposed grounding wire could have sparked the fire.

In a Feb. 6 filing with the CPUC, Edison noted it was investigating the possibility its equipment could have caused the fire, including "the extent to which that line or its grounding could be related to the cause of the fire."

In a footnote, the filing states that the company changed how it grounds idle lines, and its manual — specifically sections referring to the grounding of idle towers.

"SCE has taken immediate steps to further strengthen and standardize its grounding practices with respect to idle lines, including updating SCE's Transmission Operations and Maintenance Policies and Procedures," reads the footnote.

An Edison spokesperson declined to say what prompted the changes, or if they were connected to the company's inspections of its three towers after the fire.

Eisenhauer declined to answer questions as to whether changes in the language of the manual resulted in changes to how crews were required to ground idle transmission towers from now on.

Terrie Prosper, a spokesperson for the CPUC, confirmed to The Times that Edison updated its Transmission Operations and Maintenance Policies on Jan. 27, 20 days after the fire began and 11 days after Edison crews got access to inspect the area. The changes, Prosper said, were provided to the commission.

The changes updated a four-month-old version of the manual outlining maintenance and procedures for the company. That previous version was dated Sept. 27, 2024, Prosper said in an email.

No other changes made to Edison's manual were noted in the Feb. 6 CPUC filing, and Edison officials declined to say if it was the only change made to the manual.

In a recent interview with The Times, Edison International Chief Executive Pedro Pizarro said it was possible the company's equipment caused the fire.

"It's certainly possible it did," he said. "I've pledged to be transparent with the public as we continue to investigate."

Michael Aguirre, a former federal prosecutor who has sued the CPUC to release records, said it is a constant uphill battle to have the regulating agency release records.

"There is a blanket of secrecy over the paperwork that flows to the CPUC, that never gets to the public domain," he said.

Documents are often tagged as proprietary, he said, and the agency has worked exemptions into the state's public records law, similar to branches of government like the governor's office.

An Edison spokesperson would not say if the document was labeled as holding proprietary information or as "business confidential," preventing its release.

Dozens of lawsuits filed against Edison raise a number of theories as to how electrical equipment might have been involved in sparking the fire, including the possibility of arcing, and allegations Edison failed to maintain the vegetation in the area, raising the risk.

It's unclear if, or how, the idle tower could have been energized, but Robertson, the attorney, said investigators are looking at the possibility of induction — where a line is powered by a running parallel line.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.