Sebastopol in standoff over SmartMeters UTILITIES

PG&E SmartMeters PG&E SmartMeters Photo: Jeff Chiu, Associated Press Photo: Jeff Chiu, Associated Press Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Sebastopol in standoff over SmartMeters 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

For SmartMeter critics, it was a major win.

On Feb. 21, the Sebastopol City Council voted to ban the wireless meters, which Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has been installing throughout Northern and Central California since 2006. Anyone caught hooking up a SmartMeter within Sebastopol city limits would face a $500 fine.

To PG&E, the meters are a tool for improving service and cutting costs. They send detailed records of electricity and natural gas use to the utility automatically over the airwaves, without the need for meter readers. To a small but dedicated group of opponents, however, all those wireless signals are a public health disaster in the making. And many of the opponents live in Sebastopol.

Within hours of the council vote, a Sebastopol resident called the police to report a PG&E employee installing a meter. An officer responded to the scene and warned the worker to stop or face a fine. The PG&E employee left, shaken.

Brief standoff

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What followed was a brief standoff between PG&E, California's largest utility, and one of the many cities it serves. PG&E stopped all nonemergency work within Sebastopol, a move interpreted as a pressure tactic by some. The California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates PG&E, fired off a stern and blunt letter to city officials, calling the SmartMeter ban "unlawful and unenforceable."

The standoff has now given way to a truce. The city manager's office has suspended enforcement of the ban. And PG&E has agreed to delay installing more SmartMeters in the city, probably for several months.

SmartMeters have already provoked protests in places as distant and different as Bakersfield and San Francisco. But the brief confrontation in Sebastopol ranks among the more serious, even if it comes as the $2.2 billion SmartMeter deployment effort nears its end.

"The last thing we want is to be in a situation where we're at war with one of our communities," said Helen Burt, PG&E's chief customer officer.

SmartMeter foes aren't letting up. They say they'll keep watch over PG&E's activities in the city.

"In Sebastopol, we're going to remain vigilant," said Sandi Maurer, a Sebastopol resident who leads the EMF Safety Network, a group opposed to wireless technology. "We're going to carry cameras, and if we find someone installing meters, we're going to call the police and we're going to confront him."

Consumer backlash

Many utilities across the country are installing some version of smart meters. Utilities consider the meters basic building blocks of the "smart grid," an electricity distribution network more resilient and flexible than the current one.

But the meters have triggered a backlash among some consumers, particularly in PG&E's vast territory. Some critics have questioned the devices' accuracy, while others consider them an invasion of privacy, since the meters' data can show when people are and aren't home.

But most of the complaints have come from people who consider wireless technology a health threat. The transmissions from cell phones, tablet computers and SmartMeters, they say, can cause symptoms including migraines, insomnia and nausea and could prove carcinogenic. Their beliefs have been rejected by many researchers and supported by some, in a fierce public debate that continues to rage.

PG&E insists its meters are safe. But, under orders from the utilities commission, the San Francisco company last year started offering its customers a way to keep their old, analog meters, so long as they pay a one-time fee of $75 and a $10 monthly charge. The company has installed 9.25 million SmartMeters so far, and less than 1 percent of customers have opted out.

But opposition to the meters runs particularly strong in Sebastopol. Critics had been speaking out at public meetings for years, urging city leaders to confront PG&E.

"It's been a topic discussed at City Council meetings, almost literally at every meeting, during public comments," said Larry McLaughlin, who serves as both city manager and city attorney. "It never went away."

The ordinance approved in February called for a temporary halt to meter installation. The ban would last until the utilities commission decides whether entire communities should be allowed to opt out of the SmartMeter program en masse. Such a decision is months away.

Other communities have passed resolutions calling for a statewide moratorium on SmartMeters, and some have tried to impose bans. But the utilities commission claims final authority over the installation of utility equipment, including meters. A week after Sebastopol's council passed the ban, the commission's general counsel wrote McLaughlin a letter saying the city had overstepped its bounds.

"Under well-settled principles of California law, the City of Sebastopol has no authority to issue a 'moratorium' on this commission-approved public utility infrastructure program," wrote General Counsel Frank Lindh. "It is our opinion, therefore, that the city's ordinance is unlawful and unenforceable."

PG&E's threat

Meanwhile, PG&E had already threatened to challenge the ban in court, McLaughlin said. The company had also halted its operations in the city, including marking underground gas lines. And PG&E said it would stop hooking up electrical service at the Barlow project, a large commercial development whose first tenants were ready to move in.

"That was of great concern to me and the City Council," McLaughlin said. "This is a very important project for the city. It's crucial for that project that tenant occupancies take place as soon as possible."

Burt said the company asked its employees in Sebastopol to stop any work that wasn't emergency-related, out of concern for the workers.

"We really can't have the city arresting our employees or fining our employees," she said. She noted that the employees still worked during storms to fix power outages.

First responders

"These are the guys who go out in the middle of the night," Burt said. "They're first responders. They have a psyche that's akin to firefighters and policemen."

After receiving the letter from the utilities commission, McLaughlin suspended enforcement of the ban. PG&E agreed to hold off on further SmartMeter installations while the company reaches out to its Sebastopol customers. PG&E will tout the benefits of SmartMeters, but also ensure that all customers know how to keep their old meters if they so choose.

"It'll be a few months at least before we can get all that completed," Burt said. "But at some point, we'll be back in Sebastopol."