The year is 2010. The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP) publishes its initial environmental study on a large power infrastructure maintenance project. A portion of the project involves replacing about 200 wooden power poles that run through Pacific Palisades. The California State Lands Commission reviewed the initial study and requested that LADWP provide a Native American Ground Monitor during any digging to ensure that cultural resources are not inadvertently damaged or destroyed. By the final EIR in 2016 LADWP decided that replacing the all of those +70 year old power poles was no longer necessary.
The year is 2018. The Camp Fire ignites in northern California. It's cause was the failure of a 100 year old power line. By early 2019 LADWP decides to replace those 70 year old powerlines running through Pacific Palisades, they're in a now deemed high fire threat area. The California Public Utilities Commission has recommended they be replaced as soon as possible. Work is to start in 2019.
July 7th, 2019. LADWP has started work to replace the powerlines, as well as leveling and grading new fire roads. Amateur botanist and avid hiker David Pluenneke is hiking in the area. David is a member of the California Native Plant Society. He sees that LADWP has trampled the endangered Braunton’s milkvetch. In all, 183 milkvetches were murdered. He is livid:
Our hero David reports LADWP to the California Coastal Commission. The CCC is not happy, with unpermitted work done within their fiefdom. In order to get a CCC approved permit to replace the wooden poles LADWP must:
Submit a detailed pre and post construction vegetation survey for the entire 2.5 mile stretch. The surveys need to identify the type and location of any and all sensitive species (all birds, shrubs, milkvetches), and it needs to show their location on a detailed map.
Any work must be supervised by an on site project biologist, or biologists if the worksite is large. These observers will make daily surveys of sensitive wildlife species and they have the authority to stop any work that could result in their harm.
LADWP agrees to excavate the new powerline poles by hand, with shovels. Workers will walk to the site. Helicopters will bring in the new poles and remove the old.
No construction activities that generate noise above 60 dBA (loudness of an average conversation) may take place during bird nesting season, which runs from mid February to mid September. Of course this requires another observer biologist, a bird biologist, to verify.
Pay $1.9 million in fines.
All newly constructed fire roads must be unconstructed and returned to their original condition. Milkvetch and all.
Etc.
I wasn't able to find if / when this particular project was completed by LADWP. But overall there are 300,000+ power poles in LA. As of 2019, 65% of them were older than the average lifespan of 50 years old. In 2024, LADWP replaced just 2743 poles. Their average cost to replace a pole in the same year was $69,300. At their 2024 rates it will take LADWP over 70 years and $14 billion to replace all past lifespan poles.
To relook at the culture war angle - why was their a fire in Pacific Palisades? Maybe Jonathan Rinderknecht will be found guilty, maybe he won't be. But Jonathan didn't create a massive tinderbox in the LA hills for ideological reasons. Jonathan didn't let firehoses go without water while they sat a mile away from an empty 100 million gallon revisor. Jonathan didn't empower a council of retards at the California Coastal Commission to nuke every project from orbit at the behest of any and every nature activist. LA burned with or without Jonathan, the parallel Eaton fire was just as destructive and (as to current knowledge) not caused by him.
There will always be Jonathan Rinderknechts. We won't fix them by grasping for the very abstract universal meaning, or high-minded civic metaphysics, or better pathways, or whatever. If we need to have a confrontation with modern liberalism, it shouldn't be because it "prizes the autonomy of the individual above the stability of society". It should be because it fucking sucks. It empowers tiny little bean counter despots to make sure your critical infrastructure construction isn't too loud for the little fishes. It sets environmentalists as legally proscribed tattletales against those that produce and build. It fails to build and maintain basic infrastructure, and housing, and anything that isn't a patronage network. We should ask "Why there was a massive tinderbox outside our second largest city", instead of "what can we do to make sure every young man feels special."
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The year is 2010. The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP) publishes its initial environmental study on a large power infrastructure maintenance project. A portion of the project involves replacing about 200 wooden power poles that run through Pacific Palisades. The California State Lands Commission reviewed the initial study and requested that LADWP provide a Native American Ground Monitor during any digging to ensure that cultural resources are not inadvertently damaged or destroyed. By the final EIR in 2016 LADWP decided that replacing the all of those +70 year old power poles was no longer necessary.
The year is 2018. The Camp Fire ignites in northern California. It's cause was the failure of a 100 year old power line. By early 2019 LADWP decides to replace those 70 year old powerlines running through Pacific Palisades, they're in a now deemed high fire threat area. The California Public Utilities Commission has recommended they be replaced as soon as possible. Work is to start in 2019.
July 7th, 2019. LADWP has started work to replace the powerlines, as well as leveling and grading new fire roads. Amateur botanist and avid hiker David Pluenneke is hiking in the area. David is a member of the California Native Plant Society. He sees that LADWP has trampled the endangered Braunton’s milkvetch. In all, 183 milkvetches were murdered. He is livid:
Our hero David reports LADWP to the California Coastal Commission. The CCC is not happy, with unpermitted work done within their fiefdom. In order to get a CCC approved permit to replace the wooden poles LADWP must:
I wasn't able to find if / when this particular project was completed by LADWP. But overall there are 300,000+ power poles in LA. As of 2019, 65% of them were older than the average lifespan of 50 years old. In 2024, LADWP replaced just 2743 poles. Their average cost to replace a pole in the same year was $69,300. At their 2024 rates it will take LADWP over 70 years and $14 billion to replace all past lifespan poles.
To relook at the culture war angle - why was their a fire in Pacific Palisades? Maybe Jonathan Rinderknecht will be found guilty, maybe he won't be. But Jonathan didn't create a massive tinderbox in the LA hills for ideological reasons. Jonathan didn't let firehoses go without water while they sat a mile away from an empty 100 million gallon revisor. Jonathan didn't empower a council of retards at the California Coastal Commission to nuke every project from orbit at the behest of any and every nature activist. LA burned with or without Jonathan, the parallel Eaton fire was just as destructive and (as to current knowledge) not caused by him.
There will always be Jonathan Rinderknechts. We won't fix them by grasping for the very abstract universal meaning, or high-minded civic metaphysics, or better pathways, or whatever. If we need to have a confrontation with modern liberalism, it shouldn't be because it "prizes the autonomy of the individual above the stability of society". It should be because it fucking sucks. It empowers tiny little bean counter despots to make sure your critical infrastructure construction isn't too loud for the little fishes. It sets environmentalists as legally proscribed tattletales against those that produce and build. It fails to build and maintain basic infrastructure, and housing, and anything that isn't a patronage network. We should ask "Why there was a massive tinderbox outside our second largest city", instead of "what can we do to make sure every young man feels special."
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