Read the Chronicle story about a recent land gift from Pacific Gas and Electric, then return here for the juicy facts.
Back in December I was crowing about an extraordinary victory I had as an expert witness for the Greenlining Institute. Greenlining represents urban minorities, immigrants and low-income people.
I was hired by Greenlining to find out about a rumored deal between Pacific Gas & Electric, the Calif. Public Utilities Commission and some environmental groups. The deal was secret. Secrecy in this case is questionable public policy since the deal was a good faith offer of PG&E land for a $5 billion increase in electricity rates. The offer was intended to help get PG&E out of bankruptcy (they are still not out).
I tracked down the secret deal, analyzed it and wrote a filing that protested the following points: About half the 1200 lots in the deal were too small (unconnected 2 acre units) to be environmentally valuable. These small lots were presumably to be sold to pay for the maintenance of the remaining watershed acreage. However, the lots I looked at (and photographed from the air) would all be controversial because they were near cities or towns that would squabble over their sale, demanding that the lots be made into small parks.
The core offer of 140,000 acres of watershed land was not a good deal either. It was held and maintained by PG&E before the offer and was now about to become a cost to California taxpayers. The experts I talked to said that empty land costs $800 to $1,000 per acre, per year, to maintain with fire roads and fire protection. The expense that PG&E was passing on to the state of California is over $100 million per year.
PG&E offered a total grant of $70 million to be paid over seven years to take care of this land. To the environmental groups involved in this secret deal, this $70 million looked like a pot of gold for them and they approved the deal.
I pointed out in my filing that the $5 billion in higher electric rates would be born mostly by urban ratepayers and they were to get nothing out of this land deal.
The final solution, better than nothing, was that PG&E kicked in a separate $30 million and agreed to raise a matching $30 million from foundations for urban conservation and parks.
In addition, the Greenlining Institute was asked to recommend a few board members to oversee the money. The recommendations were appointed in March.
That is a far cry from what the Chronicle reported.