Existing law prohibits any person, except as specified, from using or operating any vehicle, machine, tool, or equipment powered by an internal combustion engine operated on hydrocarbon fuels, in any industrial operation located on or near any forest, brush, or grass-covered land between April 1 and December 1 of any year, or at any other time when ground litter and vegetation will sustain combustion permitting the spread of fire, without providing and maintaining, for firefighting purposes only, suitable and serviceable tools, as prescribed. Existing law requires a sealed box of tools to be located within the operating area and accessible in the event of a fire, which fire toolbox shall contain: one backpack pump-type fire extinguisher filled with water, 2 axes, 2 McLeod fire tools, and a sufficient number of shovels so that each employee at the operation can be equipped to fight
fire.
This bill would require a dedicated set of tools to be located within the operating area and accessible in the event of a fire, which fire toolbox shall contain: a sufficient number of fire extinguishers, axes, 2 McLeod fire tools, and shovels so that, when added to any other tools on the industrial operation, each employee at the operation can be equipped to fight fire. The bill would make other nonsubstantive changes to these provisions.
Existing law authorizes any person who owns, controls, operates, or maintains any electrical transmission or distribution line to traverse land as necessary, regardless of land ownership or express permission to traverse land from the landowner, after providing notice and an opportunity to be heard to the landowner, to prune trees to maintain clearances, as provided, and to abate, by pruning or removal, any hazardous, dead, rotten, diseased, or structurally defective live trees.
Existing law authorizes this abatement at the full discretion of the person that owns, controls, operates, or maintains the electrical transmission or distribution lines, except for certain applicable minimum clearance requirements for those lines.
Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission, which has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations, has established additional vegetation management requirements.
This bill would revise and recast those provisions related to electrical lines and abatement activities for a person who owns, controls, operates, or maintains an electrical transmission or distribution line, specifying that abatement activities covered by this law include felling, cutting, or trimming trees. The bill would explicitly require all these line clearance and tree pruning and abatement activities to comply with the
commission’s vegetation management rules, if applicable. The bill would delete an explicit statement that this electrical line access authorization provides no relief from liability for the removal of vegetation, unless that removal is covered by an applicable easement. The bill would require the identification of hazardous, dead, rotten, diseased, leaning, or structurally defective live trees that are to be felled, cut, or trimmed to be accomplished by a certified arborist or by using a tree evaluation tool or method, as provided. The bill would make require any trees that are felled, cut, or trimmed, if valuable timber or wood, as provided, to remain on
the property of the landowner, landowner and would require the person who owns, controls, operates, or maintains an electrical transmission or distribution line to preserve, to the extent feasible, any potential value of the timber or wood left onsite, unless the landowner timely requests the removal of the timber or wood, wood within a week of felling, cutting, or trimming, in which case, the timber or wood is to be removed at no cost to the landowner. If the landowner does not make a timely request, the bill would require the timber or wood to be maintained on the property in a manner that complies with applicable laws and regulations.
The California Energy Infrastructure Safety Act establishes the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety within the Natural Resources Agency and provides that, on and after July 1, 2021, the office is the successor to, and is vested with, all of the duties, powers, and responsibilities of the Wildfire Safety Division of the commission.
This bill would require the office, on or before April July 1, 2022, to develop develop, through a public process, standardized content to be used to satisfy the landowner notice requirement for
vegetation abatement and trimming activities and activities, including a description of the process for a landowner to exercise the opportunity to be heard, as specified, when challenging the proposed traversal of land and any felling, cutting, or trimming of trees; standardized content to be used by a landowner to request the removal of timber or wood, as specified; a process for a landowner to exercise the opportunity to be heard, as specified, when challenging the proposed traversal of land and any felling, cutting, or trimming of trees; and recommendations to promote
for the promotion by specified entities, and at locations, for the planting of appropriate tree and shrub species near electrical infrastructures.