Opinion: Long-term reliability and resilience requires investment
El Dorado Irrigation District has been making preparations for these power shutoffs since 2018. After analyzing areas in our system that would need to be bolstered in the event of large-scale power outages — pump stations or other facilities without backup power — we asked the EID Board of Directors to approve $800,000 to purchase generators that could be utilized across our 220-square-mile service area. The board’s recognition of the urgency of having this backup power was timely and helped us not only increase the resilience of our system, it kept our customers in service throughout the PG&E outages.