Manager’s Message – April 2024

Dear Members:

Thank you, Congressman Kiley!

Thanks to the efforts of U.S. Representative Kevin Kiley, Plumas-Sierra Telecommunications (PST) will be the recipient of $4.2 million in Congressionally Designated Funding to bring fiber-optic to and improve service along Plumas County road A-15. This includes the homes along A-15 and improving the backbone that connects to the Gold Mountain subdivision.

Representative Kiley came to visit Plumas-Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative (PSREC) and PST in February 2023. He was supportive of the co-op’s efforts to expand broadband to the constituents in our region and asked how he could help. PST staff mentioned one difficult area to serve due to the lack of facilities, which includes the homes and businesses along Plumas County Road A-15 and the Valley Ranch subdivision along Highway 89 near Clio.

We appreciate the determination and followthrough that made this happen. The federal budget has been contentious, and Representative Kiley was able to keep this funding in the budget. This area is 1 of the toughest for us to service due to Liberty Utility and AT&T owning the power poles between Portola and Gold Mountain. The $4.2 million will also pay for placing a conduit in the ground in the Valley Ranch subdivision and to the homes at the intersection of A-15 and Highway 89.

The Plumas-Sierra staff and board greatly appreciate the congressman’s efforts to improve telecommunications infrastructure in our region.

Power Outages

The amount of snow and rain our region experienced in just 72 hours during the March 1 to 4 storms was astounding.

In general, outages were almost all due to green trees in wet ground that loaded up with snow outside of our right-of-way. The systemwide outage PSREC experienced on March 3rd was due to an 85-foot tree from outside of the right-of-way near Maybe (west of Portola) falling through a transmission line.

On several occasions, our crews had to pause work due to the nonstop snowfall. We had outages in Lassen County that we couldn’t get to for several hours as it would have been dangerous for our staff to keep working.

I’m especially impressed with how hard the crew worked. Liberty Utilities, which serves Portola and Loyalton, was out for approximately 3 full days. Our crews helped the Liberty crew get the lights back on Sunday night into Monday to restore power to Portola.

The cooperative has a long history of excellence with our system reliability thanks to our Operations and Maintenance Department. In an era when large investor-owned utilities are cutting back on maintenance, PSREC has expanded its efforts with new programs, such as vegetation mastication below our lines. PSREC has 2 full electric crews, one based in Milford and another in Portola. We also have our telecommunications crew based in Portola and Milford, as well as our generation plant near Leavitt, all of whom are ready to help whether our electric or telecommunications departments need help. We also have mutual aid agreements with our fellow utilities.

Lineworker Appreciation Month

April is Lineworker Appreciation Month. PSREC lineworkers are responsible for keeping power flowing day and night, regardless of holidays, vacations, birthdays, weddings, or other important family milestones.

Beyond the years of specialized training and apprenticeships, it takes internal fortitude and a mission-oriented outlook to be a good lineworker.

In PSREC’s service territory and across the country, electric co-op lineworkers’ mindset of helping others often extends beyond their commitment to their work and into their communities.

Given the dedication of PSREC’s lineworkers—both on and off the job, and especially with the onslaught of storms throughout February and March—I encourage you to take a moment to acknowledge the many contributions they make to our community.

Telecommunications

As mentioned last month, we are delighted to share with our fiber-optic customers that we are increasing our package speeds. The Basic Package is $79 (no change) and will run at speeds up to 500 Mbps symmetrical, meaning the same speeds up and down. The Family package is $99 (no change) and will run at speeds up to 1 gigabit per second symmetrical. These changes are effective April 1 and will happen automatically. If you have any questions or would like to make changes to your package, please call 530-832-4126.

The great news on the award for A-15 is detailed above. In addition, PST crews finished the construction of our Scott Road grant. If you are in the grant area, keep an eye out for a flyer from PST and call 530-832-4126 to schedule your installation.

Due to a late winter this year, our crews have been able to make significant work on our South Lassen grant. If you would like to get on the wait list for this grant, call 530-832-4126.

PST is continuing to look at all broadband deployment grant options at the state and federal levels this year. Community and member support can play an important role in grant applications, and we may need your help documenting the need for broadband deployment in your area if plan to apply for a grant.

In the coming months, we expect to hear if PST was awarded the 10 FFA grant applications we submitted last year. While AT&T looks to leave our region, PST is looking to grow and fill the gaps in service in those areas.

If you are searching for service or wondering if you should make a long-term commitment with another provider, please check with us first. We hear again and again that if people knew our services were about to arrive, they wouldn’t have signed a different provider’s long-term contract.

We continue to expand broadband coverage throughout the region. If you haven’t already done so, get on our interest list or sign up for service by calling 530-832-4126 or visiting www.pst. coop.

Fire Prevention

As the weather improves, we will begin our right-of-way work. This includes clearing poles, trimming trees, and removing trees that threaten our rights-of-way and our communities.

Your help in this crucial, ongoing project is greatly appreciated. Our members have helped identify trees that have turned color or are clearly damaged. This is a big help—sometimes trees die and turn color after we’ve inspected them for the year.

Another way to help is cooperating when we need to remove trees. We don’t cut trees unnecessarily. It is a big expense for the cooperative. But if a tree is a hazard, we are legally required to remove it. When members cooperate with us on tree removal, it reduces our costs—which helps keep rates down—and keeps us all safe. Given California’s strict liability standard, PSREC must remove all identified hazard trees off our lines.

If you have any questions or would like more information, call 530-832-4261 ext. 6076, or email me at bmarshall@psrec.coop.

Sincerely,

Bob Marshall
General Manager