The wooden power poles along a popular hiking trail have been replaced with steel poles.
A resident wrote in a July 30 email, “I live in the Highlands and I am often on the Temescal Ridge trail and always looking at those vulnerable wooden poles.”
But today? “You can imagine my astonishment when I saw those beautiful huge steel poles stringing the landscape.” It appears that the wooden poles on Temescal Trail had recently been replaced at least to Skull Rock.
An August 2019 L.A. Times story (“Aging DWP Equipment Is Wildfire Risk, L.A. City Controller Warns”) reported that the Controller urged the DWP to speed up repairs of utility equipment to reduce the risk of sparking wildfires.
That same year, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) began an infrastructure project to replace roughly 220 wooden power poles with more fire-resistant steel poles in the Santa Monica Mountains above the Palisades Highlands.
Unfortunately, DWP did not have a permit for the work that upset the land topography and destroyed Braunton’s milkvetch plants (which are endangered) and faced a Coastal Commission hearing. https://www.circlingthenews.com/coastal-commission-fines-ladwp-almost-2-million-after-it-destroys-rare-plants-above-highlands/
At the hearing, resident Neven Karlovac told CTN that, “I had three minutes to present my concerns about the need to reduce our fire risks and to preserve the natural environment and urged approval and quick restart of the project. I also confirmed a speedy recovery of the plant colony above the Highlands.”
That year, CTN contacted spokesperson Deborah Hong who said “LADWP reached a settlement with the California Coastal Commission to mitigate impacts related to replacing aging power poles in Temescal Canyon.
“The original poles were installed between 1935-1955 and will be replaced with weathered steel poles that meet updated California Public Utilities Commission fire safety regulations,” Hong continued. “The poles service communities in West Los Angeles and the Pacific Palisades.”
The DWP was required to pay $575,000 into an account held by the State Coastal Conservancy, and $272,500 to California Department of Parks and Recreation to be used for habitat enhancement and the removal of non-native vegetation from the surrounding area.
Additionally, DWP had to pay $1.1 million to the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority for the purpose of acquiring property of similar ecological value in the SM Mountains. The total amount that the California Coastal Commission required from DWP was $1,947,500.
The resident reported on July 30 that no poles had been replaced from 2019 through December 2024, and “my repeated inquiries were never answered.”
But now, “Did the LADWP do in less than six months the job that was waiting for years because some poles burned down and they had to (see the evidence for one on the Radio Peak in the attachment)? Or to destroy the evidence that they might have caused the fire? Or…
“In any case, the fact that we have that installation now is great news,” he said. “Together with the fact that most fuel on the mountain burned away in the recent fire gives me some peace of mind for at least few years.”