So the increase was to buy spray equipment to attach to a helicopter. And a helicopter. One of the co-op ex-board members' son recently moved back to the area and had his license. . . It was a shameless cash grab by that family and was rightfully voted down by a wild majority of the co-op members. Every member of the board was replaced within 2 years of them proposing the increase as well.
They currently keep all the lines clear via bucket trucks, and when they spray, they use ATV's and trucks. It takes most of June to spray all the lines, but they get it done easily.
The actual physical infrastructure has been replaced almost entirely in the last 10 years through federal and/or state grants in combination with income from power charges.
Also, these are just fundamentally different entities. PGE is a private entity that operates for a profit. Our power company is a co-op owned and run by its members. If they have any profit at the end of the year (once infrastructure improvements and safety net investments are paid for), the money gets paid directly back to the co-op members. It's a WILDLY different incentive structure.
Not every place is built in a dry forest which traditionally burned regularly but the current infrastructure is built around never burning. The only risk in, say, Michigan, is the power going out at inopportune times.
They proposed to update it to .15 so they could trim trees around the lines a little better, but it got denied by the co-op members as unnecessary.