Infrastructure Safety

Power Factor UCS is currently soliciting the public's help in identifying and locating tree-attached utility infrastructure (TAUI) in the North Lake Tahoe Region.  Tree attachments are pieces of electrical infrastructure fastened to trees for structural support.  Because there are no approved standards, they inherently introduce wildfire risk by being in close proximity to vegetation.  These attachments took place over the course of many years and are difficult to locate due to poor record keeping and limited documentation.  As of 2019, Liberty Utilities (CalPeco) estimated that there are over 6,000+ tree attachments (see below) within their distribution system.  While removal is not specifically mandated by California's Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety, Liberty has identified this as a mitigation initiative within their ongoing Wildfire Mitigation Plan. Liberty currently leverages vegetation inspections, pole assessment inspection programs, and other capital improvement programs to locate these tree attachments. Power Factor UCS's infrastructure safety initiative aims to greatly increase the total number of removals by proactively engaging the North Lake Tahoe community in the identification and location process.

Service Tree Attachments Approximation (Source:  Liberty CalPeco 2019 WMP):

• Brockway Substation = 1,041
• Squaw Valley Substation = 289
• Tahoe City Substation = 1,950
• Stateline Substation = 1,071
• Meyers Substation = 1,914