Ten-year-old Condor #306, the eldest in the Pinnacles flock, had joined a Big Sur mating pair in raising her two chicks. But last June, she was found dead under a power line on Big Sur’s Partington Ridge. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed she’d been electrocuted.
Ventana Wildlife Society, the nonprofit leading the California condor recovery effort, asked Pacific Gas & Electric to replace the existing Partington lines with “tree wire,” insulated to eliminate the hazard that’s killed five endangered condors to date.
California Coastal Commission staff suggest a coastal development permit is required because the thicker black wire would impact the viewshed – a position strongly supported by some Partington residents. The county Resource Management Agency maintains the wire replacement project is exempted.
The dispute plays into a larger push, led by the Big Sur-based Pelican Network, to underground PG&E and AT&T power lines on both sides of Highway 1. More than 500 petition signers complain the lines blight the views. Segments that most imperil condors should get priority, the petition states, but it rejects tree wire as a short-term solution.
To Partington resident Lyndall Demere, who wrote the petition, tree wiring doesn’t make sense when undergrounding is the common solution. “This is ugly getting uglier,” she says. “My hopes would be that the most egregious places would be undergrounded, all the way from Carmel to Big Sur.”
But Ventana Executive Director Kelly Sorenson urges the community to support tree wiring during what he calls a realistic 10-30-year timeframe for undergrounding. Tree wire is the least expensive approach to preventing bird electrocutions, he argues, while improving power reliability.
“If you circled them on a map, you’d have five dead condors all within a few miles of each other, all because of power lines,” he says. “Undergrounding power lines is a worthy goal but will take many years. It’s just not fair to not do anything for the condors in the immediate future.”
The Big Sur Multi-Agency Advisory Council accepted the Pelican Network petition Nov. 1. U.S. Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, is working with utility companies on a plan to determine the cost and feasibility of undergrounding, according to Farr spokesman Adam Russell.
PG&E spokeswoman Mónica Tell says the company, citing residents’ concerns, postponed plans to replace 1,950 feet of Partington Ridge lines with tree wire.
She says undergrounding Big Sur's 22 miles of existing power lines could cost up to $100 million.