Probe Into 2022 Attack on Kern County PG&E Facility Hits Dead End

Investigators have hit a dead end in their investigation of a July 2022 incident in which gunfire caused nearly $6 million in damage to a PG&E substation near Bakersfield. It’s one of a string of unsolved acts of vandalism targeting the utility’s equipment in the past year.

Documents KQED obtained under the California Public Records Act outline a probe by the Kern County Sheriff’s Office into the shooting at the Goose Lake substation, near the town of Wasco. The attack caused an outage that affected 1,100 customers, including gas stations and restaurants, at the busy interchange where State Route 46 crosses Interstate 5.

According to the sheriff’s investigation, those responsible for the incident cut a 4-inch hole in a chain-link fence surrounding the substation. Then, they fired 10 rounds from a shotgun and large-caliber handgun into two banks of transformers, puncturing a radiator and a tank filled with mineral oil used to insulate and cool the electrical equipment. The damaged tanks leaked about 5,000 gallons of oil onto the ground.

“The hole in the fence lines up with the angles of the bullet holes in the equipment within the facility,” a sheriff’s deputy wrote in a department report. That discovery prompted the deputy to contact a colleague who works as the sheriff’s liaison with the FBI.

Details of the shooting investigation are recounted in records released by the California Public Utilities Commission. In addition to a 29-page sheriff’s report, they include documents from the CPUC’s Safety and Enforcement Division and PG&E.

Kern County investigators could not identify suspects in the case or determine a motive for the attack. But their report notes that deputies and a PG&E worker, who arrived at the substation shortly after problems at the substation were reported, noticed a car abandoned about a quarter-mile away on Highway 46.

A deputy who inspected the car, which had been stolen the day before the attack in the Kern County town of Shafter, found footprints that headed in the direction of the substation. But the tracks vanished after a short distance. Sheriff’s investigators were unable to connect either the car or the tracks to the shooting.

In response to questions about the case, a sheriff’s spokesperson said in an email late last month that the investigation “has been inactivated pending further leads.”

PG&E emphasized in reply to KQED’s question that it takes its responsibility seriously to ensure safety around its electrical facilities.

“We have security measures in place, and we are constantly evaluating the security of all of our facilities,” said company spokesperson Matt Nauman in an email.

Nauman added that so far PG&E has spent $2 million on ongoing repairs.

“Our forecast is that the total cost will be approximately $5.9 million,” he said.

The incident is one of several that have targeted PG&E’s electricity infrastructure in the last year and comes amid an increase in attacks on power sites throughout California and the nation.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Energy, California utilities reported a total of 31 incidents of vandalism to their property from Jan. 1, 2022, through March 31 of this year. Another 14 incidents were classified as actual physical attacks on facilities or “suspicious activity” meant to degrade power operations. That compares with just three such incidents reported statewide in 2017.

The federal data indicates that only a handful of the reported incidents, like the one in Kern County, have resulted in power outages.

Two months after the Kern County incident, someone shot and damaged nine PG&E transformers in rural Butte County, south of Chico. In late February, PG&E told the Sutter County Sheriff’s Office that it had recently discovered a transformer damaged by gunfire near the Sutter Bypass, southwest of Yuba City. FBI officials have said the agency is aware of all three incidents.

The most widely publicized recent attack on power facilities in Northern California came to light in March when San José police arrested a man they say set off bombs that damaged a pair of PG&E substations in the city.

These incidents came nearly a decade after a sniper attack on a major PG&E transmission complex in South San José that caused serious damage. The April 2013 incident caused an estimated $15 million in damage, attracted national attention and prompted state legislation aimed at improving security for electricity infrastructure.