Who is to blame for our power woes?

Utilities have been treating their power lines like some business owners treat their antiquated computer systems: Yes, they should be replaced, but it’s a monstrously expensive proposition, and hell, they somehow manage to get the job done. So let’s save our money and hope for the best.

This week, we’re learning about the vulnerability of such a strategy. Both the Department of Water and Power and Southern California Edison admitted that parts of their systems were built more than 70 years ago and can’t keep up with the modern needs of L.A. consumers. With temperatures this hot this long, some of the older transformers have fried.

You might be tempted to give the utilities a little slack, what with heat waves of this severity coming along once every 50 years. I mean, who knew? But what DWP and Edison are forgetting to mention is that upgrades to their systems have been delayed for years. The reasons are as much political as financial, as LABJ reporters Howard Fine and Andy Fixmer discovered about a year ago. This is how they opened:

Every so often, the power goes out at Hollywood Center Studios on Santa Monica Boulevard.

It’s not from a faulty transformer or problems at a receiving station, which triggered L.A.’s recent blackout. The outages are caused by cars that careen off Santa Monica Boulevard and knock down the power lines. “In the last few years, it’s been more frequent here,” said Tim Mahoney, the studio’s president.

The power lines should have been moved underground years ago, but money constraints have delayed the project. It’s a familiar refrain: with city budgets squeezed, an increasing amount of the DWP’s revenues are being siphoned off to city coffers. This, combined with the DWP’s accelerated debt paydowns, a lack of stable leadership and political resistance to raising rates, has delayed upgrades large and small.

“For years, the DWP was an agency on the ropes as it tried to get rid of its bloated debt and faced continuing raids on its coffers by the city,” said Stephen Erie, professor of political science at the University of California San Diego, who’s written extensively about L.A.’s infrastructure. Now, he said, the department is in better shape financially, but it’s still playing catch-up on maintenance.