The looming decision on PG and E’s latest rate hike proposal might result in the utility axing powerline undergrounding plans for Nevada County. They recently announced that crews have completed all of the heavy construction work for 350 miles this year, with 137 miles fully energized, in Lake, Contra Costa, El Dorado, and Solano counties. And their rate proposal would fund another two-thousand miles between now and 2026. That includes 110 miles here. But Paul Moreno, with Marketing and Communications, says the Public Utilities Commission’s two counterproposals are for no more than 970 miles and as few as 200…

click to listen to Paul Moreno

Moreno says the commission indicates it would rather see more hardening efforts instead…

click to listen to Paul Moreno

Moreno says their proposal would only add another three-dollars-and-forty-cents to customer bills each month, with per-mile construction costs reduced by half-a-million dollars, or to two-point-eight million dollars. But overall, average monthly bills could go up another 40 dollars a month, according to Assemblymember Megan Dahle. The commission’s proposals would mean half of that, or 13-percent. A decision from the commission could come as soon as November second.