2024-09-27 BBILAN Update
BBILAN’s National Electrical Wildfire Initiative
It might appear that fire safety would be among the highest priorities and critical concerns for state and local governments. However, sadly, in regard to electrical fires caused by power lines and telecom equipment, this is not the case. In fact, for most locales, electrical fires “are not even on our radar,” to quote one fire battalion chief. Fire safety was one the original domains of delegated legal authority under the federal Constitution when the nation’s founders recognized that local communities, not remote federal authorities, were in the best position to attend to and control wildfires. To address this gap, BBILAN has organized in 2024 a National Electrical Wildfire Initiative to identify critical challenges and to share best practices. This is our first Report.
National Webinars—Raising Public Awareness
We have thus far organized two National Webinars:
May 20, 2024 National Webinar— Evolutionary Conversation — Wildfire Risks in an Age of Climate Turbulence and Cell Tower Densification. New scientific findings are uncovering unique wildfire risks associated with the proliferation of wireless small cell and macro towers, smart meters and other IoT devices. At the same time, empowered local communities are innovating to address these grave risks. This webinar is timely, as wildfire risks associated with cell towers and other wireless infrastructure will greatly intensify during this summer and fall seasons. This is a foreseeable and avoidable catastrophe. It is also a matter of profound social and environmental justice and basic human rights. Not everyone agrees with the above statement; the purpose of this Evolutionary Conversation is to examine critically the available evidence on wildfire risks from cell towers.
August 2, 2024 National Webinar—Collective Blindness, Risk, Resilience, and Emergence. In this Evolutionary Conversation we discuss some root causes of our inability or unwillingness to discern and deal with risk, even when it is palpable; we explore opportunities for community and national transcendence and transformation. We use our indifference and lack of preparedness to manage electrical wildfires as one specific example of collective blindness, among many others.
Essential Tools
Analytic Fire Risk Matrix—This is a powerful tool that combines our own expertise and experience with Risk Assessment, supported by ChatGPT-4o (AI). The basic analysis begins with the premise that Risk = Probability x Damages. In order to determine the Risk profile of any community, we first identify risk factors that point to the probability of a telecom-caused fire. We then estimate the potential damages based a number of key factors, such as evidence of prior electrical fires, adequacy of present evacuation plans, densification of cell towers, availability of adequate hospital facilities, effective coordination of local fire departments, financial resources available to these fire departments, and attention to the special needs of vulnerable populations, including minorities, disabled, and economically challenged persons. The result of this analysis is an estimate of Probability and Damages, which then points to overall Risk.
Addressing the Sources of Individual and Collective Blindness White Paper by BBILAN Board member William Moulton and AI.
Executive Summary:
In the complex and interconnected world of today, decision-makers across sectors are often plagued by what can be termed as "individual and collective blindness." This phenomenon encapsulates the resistance to acknowledging,learning about, and addressing the multifaceted challenges that confront our
global society. These challenges, ranging from climate change to economic
instability, demand a level of proactive engagement and adaptive leadership that is frequently stymied by a host of psychological, structural, and cultural factors. This White Paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the top 30 to 40 reasons contributing to this blindness, offering an exhaustive exploration into how these factors manifest, and proposing targeted strategies to mitigate their impact. By delineating these sources of resistance and inertia, we pave the way for the development of practical solutions aimed at fostering wise leadership and a robust will to act.
Wise and Resilient Community Leadership
Best practices—The central challenge facing local communities is fragmentation of legal and political authority. We have found no government officials willing to take responsibility to inform themselves about electrical fire risks, and take anticipatory and remedial action. As a result there is a yawning gap. There are pockets of coordination—for example, a mayor is in contact with the local Fire Department. But no one appears interested or willing to See the Big Picture, which is one of the essential attributes of a wise leader. Local Fire Chiefs may be proud of their Community Wildfire Protection Plan, but these plans fail even to mention the urgent and special challenges of wildfires caused by telecom equipment and/or power lines. BBILAN’s role has been to support local champions in our Tahoe and Los Angeles legal cases, and to make available best community leadership practices, as set out in our Resilient Communities Leadership course. We are making steady progress, as noted below, and are encouraging a series of Town Meetings to raise the awareness of the community to significant risks and challenges in anticipating, controlling, and managing evacuations during an electrical-caused wildfire.
Legal Actions and Public Advocacy
FFLA et al. v. Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, et al. Building on our partial victory in March 2024, BBILAN, Children’s Health Defense, and our able local counsel, Mitchell Tsai have now entered into settlement negotiations with BB&K representing Los Angeles County. A key concern hopefully shared by all parties is how to protect Los Angeles County residents from the next major wildfire caused by electrical/telecom facilities. This means requiring all telecom companies to comply fully with the electrical fire safety requirements in the National Electrical Code (NEC) and Los Angeles County and municipal electrical fire safety codes. Although Los Angeles County has the legal authority to require the telecom companies to comply with the NEC, state and fire codes, it is, as of this writing, recognizing telecom providers’ self-exemption from complying with these safety codes.
Advocacy issues
White Paper: Cell Tower Fire Safety Risks. In all the cases in which BBILAN is involved, local governments have expressed concerns that cell towers themselves, being important for communications infrastructure, may catch fire during a non-electrical-caused wildfire. Local authorities fail to recognize that cell towers themselves represent significant fire risks, as described by Susan Foster in her White Paper and presented in BBILAN’s May 20 program.
Malibu Fire Safety Protocol. The Protocol, conceived and drafted by attorney Scott McCollough and Susan Foster, represents the gold standard and first practical step that every local municipality should adopt by Resolution and incorporate into its permit application procedures. See Scott’s Ordinance Summary here.
2021 Los Angeles Climate Vulnerability Assessment. The Assessment is an important reference document which at least links the fire vulnerability of communities to the challenges of climate change and adaptation. Although the Report makes frequent references to electrical infrastructure, it does not mention the challenges of electrical-caused fires even once.
Short Circuit Coordination Study. It is imperative that a certified electrical engineer review all telecom municipal permit applications for small cell and macro cell towers. This is not happening in any of the locations in which BBILAN is involved. While all permits require a sign-off by a civil engineer, they likely may not be competent to sign off on the fire risks of a telecom permit application, which is the present situation in Los Angeles County. We have evidence that at least one telecom provider, whose applications have been routinely approved, is consistently violating the NEC and local fire codes. One remedy for this danger is for local communities to require a Short Circuit Coordination Study to focus on the problem and support a denial and/or cancellation of all non-complying applications.
Cell tower map locations. The telecom companies are doing what they can to conceal the locations of cell tower installations, which hamstrings the pubic from mounting effective challenges. Local communities are advised to create cell tower location maps that are easy to access. Here is an example of a crowdsourced cell tower map you can use to zoom in to specific cell tower specs and locations.
Sonoma Zoning Board May 20, 2023 letter. BBILAN legal team successfully persuaded a local Zoning Board in Sonoma County to deny a telecom permit application based in part on the fire safety risks.
Lake Tahoe Electrical Fire Risk Management Plan. Based on our analytic Risk Matrix, there is a 25% probability of an electrical-caused wildfire in the greater Lake Tahoe Community over the next three years, with estimated damages of over $5 billion. As in most communities, electrical-caused fires are “off the radar” of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA), local municipalities, and fire departments in Tahoe. If present electrical fire risk factors continue to be ignored, our risk estimate will substantially increase. A recent Tahoe Wildfire Evacuation Analysis estimates that 120,000 people could die in the next wildfire. The governmental authorities are failing to exert wise leadership. The urgent challenge is for the community to support its local champions, like David Jinkens who is running for South Lake Tahoe City Council, to inspire the larger Lake Tahoe community to address the critical issues in a series of Town Meetings.
Santa Barbara Electrical Fire Risk Management Plan. The Thomas Fire was a massive wildfire that affected Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties, and one of multiple wildfires that ignited in southern California in December 2017. It burned approximately 281,893 acres (440 sq mi; 114,078 ha) before being fully contained on January 12, 2018, making it the largest wildfire in modern California history at the time. The Thomas Fire caused $120 million in damages, destroyed 777 homes, and triggered landslides and floods resulting in five deaths. As a result, the Santa Barbara community came together and produced a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). Although excellent in many respects, the CWPP does not address the special challenges electrical-caused fires present for control and evacuation. Note must be made that electrical wildfires and other kinds of fires based on human error, and natural wildfires, are synergistic; the one can aggravate and enflame the fire intensifying conditions of the other, producing compounding risks, or a Negative Multiplier Effect. BBILAN has produced an Analytic Risk Matrix that suggests the level of risk of an electrical wildfire during the next three years in Santa Barbara County (including Santa Barbara City) indicates that the Probability is well over 50%, and the likely damages estimated at ≈$2 billion. Since this initial assessment, BBILAN has learned about the Goleta Load Pocket (GLP) which is a 70-mile power line running directly through and alongside the Los Padres National Forest. The County of Santa Barbara acknowledges that this is a high fire risk area. The GLP greatly increases the fire risks facing Santa Barbara, which the mayor himself recognizes presents conditions similar to the Lahaina Maui fire.
Electrical Fire Risks, Social Justice, Protection of Minorities and Other Vulnerable Populations. This is a hugely important and almost entirely unexamined area in local and state plans to address wildfire risks. This ChatGPT-4o assessment provides insight into the special challenges facing these communities.
Special Challenges of Evacuation. Electrical fires present special challenges for evacuation, including the necessity of cutting off power, special fire retardants (firefighters must refrain from using water on electrical-caused fires on cell and power poles), toxic fumes, specialized equipment, and the special needs of vulnerable populations. Most municipalities are unprepared for electrical-caused fires, although they are pretending that they are.
U.S. Forest Service Coordination. The essential point is that local communities facing electrical-caused wildfire risk should immediately negotiate fire control agreements with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to collaborate effectively. BBILAN has seen no evidence of this happening. At present there is some confusion in this area. In 2021 the Western Governors negotiated an agreement with USFS to abandon its “Let it Burn” policy. (See Dana Tibbitts article.) Some members of our extended BBILAN team believe the USFS is faithfully carrying out its part of the bargain. Yet, there is contrary evidence.
Insurance. The insurance industry has been retreating for years from extending fire protection, having assessed the business risks. It is increasingly difficult to obtain fire insurance for residences and businesses in certain fire-prone areas, and the increased rates are making insurance coverage unaffordable for the average homeowner (or renter). This means the entire risk of electrical fires caused by telecom providers will fall entirely on an unaware and non-consenting public.
Inadequate funding for local planning and fire departments. In a perverse twist, despite the increasing risks of electrical-caused wildfires, some local communities are actually cutting back on financial and other support for local fire departments. In Santa Barbara we are told because of recent budget cuts there is insufficient funding for fuel for the fire trucks. In Los Angeles County (the largest county in the nation), there are apparently insufficient resources to hire electrical engineers in addition to civil engineers, who may lack sufficient training to certify the safety of a telecom tower permit application. Still, dozens of applications are being approved monthly by these civil engineers.
Resilient Communities Leadership: Building Integral Resilience through Collaborative Innovation. As this Report is pointing out, there is a great leadership gap at the level of local governments in addressing the high probability of coming catastrophes from uncontrolled wildfires originating from power lines and telecom equipment. This indifference or unwillingness of local government authorities makes it imperative that local communities come together with citizen leaders and champions. Here are three areas that can produce immediate positive outcomes:
Collaborative Fundraising. A critical barrier to communities coming together is lack of funds. The scarcity of available funding, even for urgent public causes like effective fire management, turns the few groups that are informed about the issues into competitors. Competition among non-profit grassroots organizations over funding well serves the game plan of the telecom providers, as such competition diverts and depletes the creative energies of these organizations. Small wonder that burnout is prevalent. Here is a thoughtful article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review on this central challenge.
Collaborative Innovation. The art of Integral Resilience is to turn adversity into opportunities and advantage. Here is a general article on this principle. One example is Intelligent Solar Microgrids (ISM). Here are two articles which document in the context of Santa Barbara how ISMs can deliver energy resilience as part of an intelligent response to the significant and unattended risks facing Santa Barbara from telecom installations generally, and the Goleta Load Pocket in particular:
Community Microgrid Initiative | Clean-Coalition.org
Goleta Load Pocket Community Microgrid (GLPCM) | Clean-Coalition.orgGreen Social Impact Bonds: Financing Fire Resilient Infrastructure. On June 4, 2024 BBILAN submitted a letter to Santa Barbara Mayor Randy Rowse which was ignored. The letter contained a specific proposal on how to finance an innovative and robust electrical fire response:
“The estimated cost of implementing the proposed two-year community-wide collaborative action plan is $18.7 million. The proposed Blended Green/Social Impact Bond Offering could raise $100 million to support the program implemented over 5 years at an interest rate of 3.5% per annum, payable in installments. In an era of budgetary cuts, a top priority must be to provide whatever financial support the Fire Department(s) require to protect the lives of firefighters and the general Santa Barbara community. We estimate the benefit streams to Santa Barbara of uniting the community around this higher superordinate goal of getting ahead of a catastrophe before it happens, and in caring for one another in managing the situation courageously and imaginatively, at $256.6 million, and this estimate is on top of the benefits of avoiding or mitigating the devastating costs of the catastrophe itself. By addressing the electrical wildfire risk in this manner, Santa Barbara will have in place a proven template to apply to other disaster management situations. The vast majority of communities across the U.S. are ignoring the special and significant risks of electrical wildfires. Santa Barbara has a unique opportunity to become a thought leader for other cities and local communities.”
Other BBILAN Educational Initiatives
Resilient Community Leadership Course
The 2024 spring-summer offering of the Resilient Community Leadership Course has ended. Below is one review from a participant. A next offering of the course combined with the Kokoro Awakening app for a premium subscribers network will be announced in December and commence in Q1 2025.
Review:
Attorney Julian Gresser has created an amazing, in-depth and comprehensive Integral Resilience course. His goal is to empower each of us to reclaim our resilience in the face of daunting challenges! This is especially exemplified by the telecom takeover, the captured government agencies, and our compromised lawmakers.
As a practicing attorney for over 50 years, Julian knows what we're up against. Using his many years of legal expertise, his skills as a master negotiator, his extensive martial arts training, and his network of experts in various fields, this living online course is multi-faceted and complex, but in many ways it’s quite simple. This simplicity is especially embodied in Module 3 of the course, “Building Resilience with ‘Just Click!’.”
There are twelve modules in all, but we can jump in anywhere. A video is included with each module to explain the process. We're all busy, so the course is designed to explore and absorb at our own pace.
What I especially appreciate is the weekly Friday morning “office hour” where we can share our thoughts, ask questions, and meet with other explorers. One of the recent discussions had to do with synchronicity and how this can help us reclaim our vision.
We’ve also discussed the power of “micro-moves” and how they can create massive changes. This course is helping me be more creative in adapting to challenging situations as I rediscover my strengths to avoid burn-out.
— Sidnee Cox, co-director EMF Safety Network, SafeTech4SantaRosa
Kokoro—The Awakening App Series
Kokoro—The Awakening App is an interactive AI-enabled personal applied wisdom app that enables users to formulate their most important wisdom questions or challenges, refine these questions using a special algorithm based on Integral Resilience (which is itself closely related to wisdom), then gain insights from any of the world’s wisdom traditions and wisdom teachers. In addition, the app includes 50 simple wisdom practices. The app can be enjoyed individually, in small groups or wisdom circles. It embeds a methodology to address or “solve” any serious challenge through the lens of wisdom. Kokoro in Japanese is written with the character for Heart/Mind. The Kokoro app will be followed by Wise Decision Navigator (for business enterprises), Resilient Community Leadership, and Women Leadership (to be released in November 2024 - January 2025).
Special Invitation: BBILAN is inviting a limited number of subscribers to our Newsletter to participate in a free beta trial of Kokoro. We welcome your putting Kokoro through its paces in assisting you in your personal concerns regarding the Wireless Juggernaut, or any other important personal challenge in your life. Please let us know if you would like to join this Discovery Expedition, and we will forward on-boarding instructions. Contact: julian@bbilan.org.
National Evolutionary Conversations: Addressing Significant Wisdom Challenges
Beginning in Q1 2025, BBILAN, in collaboration with other organizations, will be launching a new series of National Webinar Evolutionary Conversations on a wide variety of critical challenges facing local communities, nations, the international community, and our planet. We will show that wisdom is not only the highest of virtues, but also a practical skill and art form that anyone can master with dedicated and enjoyable practice.