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b'April 4, 2022 \\u2014 As PG&E\\u2019s tree-cutting crews move into more neighborhoods, some property owners are slowly starting to think in terms of an organized response. But the enhanced vegetation management program, with its multitude of contractors and the lack of education or publicly available documents, is bewildering to most landowners. \\nLauren Robertson is a resident of Pine Mountain in Willits. She described the approach she\\u2019s seen in her neighborhood. \\u201cPG&E has been masterful at dealing with people individually,\\u201d she opined; \\u201cdoing favors for some property owners. And as soon as they do a favor for a property owner, that property owner is suddenly not mad anymore. And that\\u2019s a little disturbing.\\u201d Robertson is scrupulous about hardening her property for fire safety. \\u201cWe could bury our houses also, and that would prevent fires from burning our houses down,\\u201d she reasoned. \\u201cBut we\\u2019ve hardened our houses. And I think that\\u2019s what PG&E is not doing. They\\u2019re not hardening their lines. Or hardening their infrastructure by cutting down trees.\\u201d \\nA recent report by acting State Auditor Michael Tilden blasted the privately owned utilities and the agencies that are supposed to regulate them. Tilden wrote that the Energy Safety Office, which is part of the California Natural Resources Agency, approved PG&E\\u2019s 2021 safety plan, in spite of its own review, which \\u201cfound that the utility failed to demonstrate that it was properly prioritizing other mitigation activities, particularly power line replacement and system hardening efforts,\\u201d like insulating bare cable in high-risk areas. Tilden added that, \\u201cThe CPUC does not consistently audit all areas in the utilities\\u2019 service territories, it did not audit several areas that include high fire-threat areas, and it does not use its authority to penalize utilities when its audits uncover violations.\\u201d\\n\\u201cThere\\u2019s no authority that can tell them what to do. They can just do whatever they want,\\u201d according to Walter Smith, a former logger who turned his attention to international deforestation prevention efforts in the 1990\\u2019s. \\u201cWe all know that corporate power is a problem. And now it\\u2019s right in our face.\\u201d Smith was also instrumental in starting the Mendocino County Climate Advisory Committee in 2019. For the past month, he\\u2019s been spending three or four hours a day researching the public resource code, making phone calls, and sharing his findings with an email list that includes dozens of environmentalists and political representatives in Mendocino and Humboldt counties. So far, he\\u2019s succeeded in keeping crews out of an old-growth grove that\\u2019s especially important in a millennial drought. \\n\\u201cThis whole hill was left as old growth,\\u201d he said on a recent afternoon, as he led a reporter into the deep, cool shade of the grove. \\u201cBecause underneath, at the bottom of this hill, is an underground river, which we get our water from, and all these houses get their water off of that same one. The old-timers knew to protect the water, you gotta keep shade on it, and you gotta keep the old-growth trees on it.\\u201d\\nSmith is especially perturbed by the damage that was done to an old madrone, when crews felled a tree from his neighbor\\u2019s property into the grove, tearing limbs from the old struggling hardwood and leaving debris from the felled firs all over the forest floor. \\u201cThis tree, in terms of this neighborhood, is a heritage tree,\\u201d Walter related. He said neighborhood kids used to sit high in its branches and feel like they were \\u201cat the top of the world,\\u201d or swing out over the underground river on a rope swing. \\u201cSo this old tree meant something, other than just being an old tree in the forest,\\u201d he concluded. \\u201cIt was a home base, if you will, for children on this hill.\\u201d\\nMarie Jones is the chair of the Mendocino County Climate Advisory Committee, which recently drafted a letter imploring the Board of Supervisors to petition the Governor and the Office of Energy and Infrastructure Safety to call a halt to the program long enough to get some answers, \\u201con a range of issues,\\u201d she began. \\u201cSo one is, what are landowners\\u2019 rights regarding tree removal? A lot of people don\\u2019t realize, but landowners can actually say, no you can\\u2019t remove these trees from my property. And also, if PG&E\\u2019s tree removal results in significant devaluation of your property, you can actually require PG&E to pay for that devaluation. We\\u2019re also very concerned about whether or not there really is a scientific basis for tree removal. I think it\\u2019s an easy fix for PG&E because it\\u2019s relatively inexpensive compared to upgrading their systems. But in the long term, it\\u2019s also very ineffective, because it does increase the fire risk, rather than reducing it.\\u201d\\nThe organized response is slow-moving and small-scale. But Randy MacDonald of Pine Mountain is holding out until he gets the documents and contracts and signatures he expects from any serious, legitimate project. \\u201cThey have not been able to provide that,\\u201d he reported. \\u201cNow it\\u2019s been two weeks, and I said, get back to me when you have all the paperwork. And they have not gotten back to me, and I\\u2019m just getting more and more educated here.\\u201d\\nOn Thrusday afternoon, MacDonald\\u2019s neighbor Bobbi Mallace sat on her porch looking at what remains of the trees that used to shade her home and provide privacy from the road. \\n\\u201cObviously, we can\\u2019t move it,\\u201d she said. \\u201cSo we\\u2019re dependent on PG&E, which tells us they\\u2019re going to pick it up. If they pick it up, great. If they don\\u2019t pick it up, it\\u2019s going to stay there and become a fire hazard\\u2026I don\\u2019t feel safer.\\u201d Asked if she thought there was any kind of legal response, Mallace said the only one she could come up with was a class-action suit. But \\u201cyou\\u2019ve got to have a class,\\u201d she pointed out. \\u201cBecause fighting PG&E has got to be a pretty big class. Alone, I don\\u2019t think you could do a thing.\\u201d'