Why Power Lines Are Going Underground
Clip | 5m 52sVideo has Closed Captions
Could underground power lines help reduce wildfire risks in California?
The Los Angeles wildfires brought renewed attention to California’s aging energy infrastructure. Discover how different communities are rethinking power lines, including efforts to underground electrical systems to reduce wildfire risks in vulnerable areas. Experts explore the tradeoffs, costs, and safety considerations shaping the future of the grid.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Earth Focus is a local public television program presented by PBS SoCal
Why Power Lines Are Going Underground
Clip | 5m 52sVideo has Closed Captions
The Los Angeles wildfires brought renewed attention to California’s aging energy infrastructure. Discover how different communities are rethinking power lines, including efforts to underground electrical systems to reduce wildfire risks in vulnerable areas. Experts explore the tradeoffs, costs, and safety considerations shaping the future of the grid.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Where to Watch Earth Focus
Earth Focus is available to stream on pbs.org and the PBS app.
Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship♪ Man: As recently as last year, when FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Association, released their national risk index, they still said San Diego County is the highest fire risk in the entire United States.
There's 3.6 million people who live here in Southwestern California, so we're very populated, and it takes a lot of power lines to serve that many people.
Just here in our service territory, we have over 20,000 miles of lines altogether.
Our droughts have been more extreme, and ignitions that decades ago may not have had a major impact on the community now are having major impacts, so we have to understand this, and we have to mitigate the potential of that happening.
♪ Narrator: The City of San Diego started undergrounding in the 1970s, and approximately 1,000 miles of overhead utility lines remain.
♪ D'Agostino: SDG&E has been developing and evolving the grid into some very high-risk areas, and this is where we anticipate any type of emergency that we face on the electric system.
Man: We've implemented numerous weather stations throughout the service territory to do real-time monitoring of the weather.
We're converting overhead power lines to an underground system.
Not only does it help mitigate the wildfire risk and the public safety shutoff risk, but it helps with the esthetics of these communities.
D'Agostino: What we have developed here in San Diego is a new system that we called the wildfire Next Generation System, WiNGS, where we look at assets-- SDG&E equipment, where are there power lines, where are there power poles.
This is the level of science and granularity that needs to be understood.
When it comes down to prioritization of strategic undergrounding and those different areas, having a safe system that's going to be resilient not only to the climate of today, but what we anticipate the climate to be like 30, 50 years from now is really important things for us to be thinking about now.
♪ Frausto: The general process for undergrounding is multi-layered and takes a lot of time, so first, they'll trench and lay whatever conduits they need to, and then they will pull the wires through.
It's not only a utility project, but then other services, like Internet, they have to switch over their transformers or their boxes.
Once that's all done, then they have to flip the power from the overhead lines to the underground lines.
Man: Everything's going underground, you know, little by little, you know.
By the time I'm old, everything's going underground.
Like, if you go to Downtown, you don't see poles there, much poles.
Everything's going underground, you know?
Emerson: So La Jolla is part of the City of San Diego, but La Jolla itself as a community really has several different distinct areas.
One is called Bird Rock, which is to the south, and then you have the Village in the middle where all the shops are and restaurants and some of the bigger hotels, and then you have La Jolla Shores, which is down here where we are today.
Bird Rock had most of its undergrounding done a long time ago.
It's taken a long time in the Shores.
Frausto: Undergrounding delays at the city level usually come down to, in this neighborhood, the construction moratorium that happens during the summer because this area is really heavily impacted by tourists, so to make traffic easier, any trenching work, any digging work has to stop by Memorial Day and can't resume until after Labor Day.
Emerson: I love the Shores.
It's wonderful.
My parents were very involved in the community.
My mother helped establish the La Jolla Shores Association and write the plan district ordinance for the area.
La Jolla Shores Association is sort of like a town council.
It does everything for the La Jolla Shores area, and we go from the beach all the way up to Gilman Drive, which runs parallel to Highway 5, all the way up to Mount Soledad.
We oversee what's known as the Throat, which would have been the area that you came in to come into La Jolla Shores, so we really oversee this whole part of the community.
Frausto: The city has provided a map of the undergrounding which shows throughout San Diego the different phases and areas that are affected.
La Jolla Shores is currently undergoing Block One, Phase One, which is the western part of La Jolla Shores.
The eastern part of La Jolla Shores did have undergrounding, but that has been since completed, so now we're in the Western.
We're finishing up the western portions.
Emerson: Some of the houses were not connected, as all the other ones were, to the poles and to the power lines above, and so they've had to go into those particular houses and dig trenches and put in the conduits so that they can pull the lines for those particular houses, and there have been anywhere from a couple to a half dozen in each block that they've had to do that.
Frausto: So this lengthy process does require that the power is shut off every now and then.
The neighborhood behind me, the neighbors behind me, they will receive notices on their door alerting them to a temporary power shutoff.
It doesn't last more than, I would say, an hour or two.
That's been happening more and more recently while the work has been getting closer and closer to completion.
Now PlayingWhy Power Lines Are Going Underground
Video has Closed Captions
Clip | 5m 52s | Could underground power lines help reduce wildfire risks in California? (5m 52s)
Why Fast Fashion Is Fueling a Growing Waste Crisis
Video has Closed Captions
Clip | 3m 48s | More clothes, lower quality and mounting environmental costs. (3m 48s)
The ‘Impossible Dream’ to Restore the LA River
Video has Closed Captions
Clip | 3m 14s | Exploring the history, ecology, and future of the Los Angeles River. (3m 14s)
The Fight to Protect Los Padres National Forest
Video has Closed Captions
Clip | 7m 46s | Will the Trump Administration’s rollback of public lands protections jeopardize Los Padres National (7m 46s)
The Fight to Protect the Mojave
Video has Closed Captions
Clip | 7m 58s | The researchers dedicated to protecting the Mojave Desert’s biodiversity. (7m 58s)
Conservationists and Communities Fight to Protect the Kern River
Video has Closed Captions
Clip | 8m 27s | The California River that’s loved, drained and overrun and the people fighting to defend it (8m 27s)
Preserving Ocean Life on the California Coast
Video has Closed Captions
Clip | 7m 13s | Setting sail to learn about efforts to protect marine ecosystems in the Santa Barbara Channel. (7m 13s)
Beach Access and a Threatened Track
Video has Closed Captions
Clip | 7m 13s | As the coastline erodes, what can be done to save the seaside rail link between LA and San Diego? (7m 13s)
A Visit to Carlsbad's Fix-It Clinic
Video has Closed Captions
Clip | 6m 47s | The people who find joy and purpose in repairing the broken items in our lives. (6m 47s)
Sun, Sand and Climate Change: The Fight to Save California’s Coast
Video has Closed Captions
Clip | 6m 53s | What’s being done to save Southern California’s beaches from being washed away for good? (6m 53s)
How to Create a Sustainable, Zero Waste Meal Plan
Clip | 7m 11s | A climate change activist tells us how to create a more sustainable kitchen. (7m 11s)
The Community That Transforms Food Scraps Together, Stays Together
Video has Closed Captions
Clip | 5m 50s | L.A.’s garden activists create a composting movement. (5m 50s)
Meet the People Rescuing Food, Feeding Neighbors & Helping the Climate
Video has Closed Captions
Clip | 6m 32s | Saving perfectly good food from dumpsters (6m 32s)
Video has Closed Captions
Clip | 6m 27s | We explore why enough water couldn’t be pumped through fire hydrants to protect homes from burning. (6m 27s)
Goodbye Plants, Hello Fire Safety
Video has Closed Captions
Clip | 7m 53s | Controversial proposal to protect homes from wildfires by forcing homeowners to remove vegetation. (7m 53s)
Can You Build a Fire-Proof Home?
Video has Closed Captions
Clip | 7m 46s | How to rebuild after L.A.’s devastating wildfires. (7m 46s)
Earth Focus Environmental Film Festival 2023 (Preview)
Preview | 30s | The fifth annual Earth Focus Environmental Film Festival features five days of screenings. (30s)
Clip | 8m 17s | Taylor Yard is now an undeveloped and still-contaminated site adjacent to the L.A. River. (8m 17s)
Earth Focus Environmental Film Festival
Preview | 1m 18s | Earth Focus Environmental Film Festival (1m 18s)
Cold Rush? The Changing Arctic
Clip | 14m 41s | "Earth Focus" looks at the changing face of the Arctic today. (14m 41s)
Fukushima: Can it Happen in the US?
Clip | 7m 21s | Fukushima was not a Japanese nuclear disaster. (7m 21s)
Cambodia: Fight for Areng Valley
Clip | 10m 47s | The Chong people are fighting to protect their forests. (10m 47s)
Inside Illicit Ivory and Rhino Horn Trade
Clip | 6m 41s | Inside Illicit Ivory and Rhino Horn Trade (6m 41s)
Unacceptable Risk: Firefighters on the Frontline
Clip | 12m 52s | Fires are becoming more frequent, larger and more devastating than ever. (12m 52s)
China: Religion and Environment
Clip | 13m 37s | Filmmakers Gary Marcuse and Shi Lihong capture a surprising trend in China. (13m 37s)
Hope for Rhinos? New Approaches to Save Endangered Species
Clip | 14m 31s | Rhino horn is more expensive than gold or platinum. (14m 31s)
Making Coastal Communities More Resilient to Extreme Weather
Clip | 5m 48s | Joshua Saks looks at how America's communities can be protected. (5m 48s)
Paying for Climate Change: A Reinsurance Industry View
Clip | 6m 32s | Climate change is anticipated to have a big impact on the insurance industries. (6m 32s)
Encroaching Tides: What's at Stake for the US
Clip | 6m 32s | The eastern coast of the United States has one of the highest rates of sea level rise. (6m 32s)
Sacred Economics: A Post Money World?
Clip | 11m 55s | Charles Eisenstein speaks to Earth Focus about his new book Sacred Economics. (11m 55s)
Neonics: Toxic Until Fully Tested
Clip | 8m 58s | Scott Hoffman Black speaks about the impact of neonicotinoid pesticides. (8m 58s)
Neonics: Driving Declines in Biodiversity
Clip | 8m 26s | Dr. David Goulson speaks about the impact of neonicotinoid pesticides. (8m 26s)
Clip | 5m 43s | Earl Blumenauer talks about why protecting pollinators in the US is the national interest. (5m 43s)
Clip | 11m 29s | Shrimp farmers tell us to reject contaminated shrimp from Bangladesh. (11m 29s)
Killing the Senate Filibuster Could Inspire Bipartisanship
Clip: Special | 27m 36s | Jon Christensen moderates a conversation with former Nevada Sen. Harry Reid. (27m 36s)
Sen. Cortez Masto: Pursuing a Green Economy
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: Special | 1m 9s | Cortez Masto has a goal to grow a clean energy economy that includes jobs for the future. (1m 9s)
Sen. Cortez Masto: Protecting the Outdoors is Nonpartisan
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: Special | 37s | Protecting the environment should not be considered a partisan issue, Cortez Masto says. (37s)
Sen. Cortez Masto: On Reid’s Environmental Legacy
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: Special | 54s | Sen. Harry Reid struck a balance when crafting inclusive environmental policy, she says. (54s)
Sen. Cortez Masto: On Growing Up in Rural Las Vegas
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: Special | 40s | Cortez Masto grew up in a rural Las Vegas with cowboys and ranches. (40s)
Sen. Cortez Masto: ‘A Microcosm of America’
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: Special | 1m 17s | Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto describes her state’s role in national politics. (1m 17s)
The New West and the Politics of the Environment (Preview)
Video has Closed Captions
Preview: Special | 1m | A quiet, little-known revolution is taking place in American environmental politics. (1m)
Moapa Solar Plant Addressed Injustice, Economy and Energy
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: Special | 5m 7s | Behind-the-scenes negotiations helped establish the Moapa transition from coal to solar. (5m 7s)
How SNPLMA Wove Urban Las Vegas Back Into the Environment
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: Special | 2m 17s | The legislation helped balance urban growth in Las Vegas with environmental conservation. (2m 17s)
Black Rock-High Rock: The Negotiation Behind Conservation
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: Special | 8m 2s | A proposal to protect Nevada’s Black Rock Desert-High Rock Canyon received much criticism. (8m 2s)
Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship
Support for PBS provided by:
Earth Focus is a local public television program presented by PBS SoCal