By Rebecca Smith
PG&E Corp. will offer a $250,000 reward for information
resulting in the arrest and conviction of people who attacked its
Metcalf transmission substation near San Jose, Calif., last
year.
The company said it would announce the size of the reward later
Thursday, almost a year after gunmen knocked the substation out of
commission.
As The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year, the
attack began on April 16, 2013, with the slashing of fiber optic
cables in underground vaults near the substation that were owned by
AT&T and Level 3 Communications, which disrupted local phone
and data communications.
A few minutes later, gunmen opened fire on the substation,
seriously damaging 17 large transformers that help send electricity
to Silicon Valley. It took the utility a month to make repairs, at
a cost of about $16 million.
AT&T immediately offered a reward of $250,000 for
information leading to arrests.
PG&E initially played down the seriousness of the attack,
referring to it as an act of vandalism, because executives feared
that publicity might result in copycat attacks.
The utility, which serves most of northern California, said
Thursday it has been cooperating with a probe by the Federal Bureau
of Investigation. It also said it intends to spend $100 million on
security upgrades to its substations.
The Metcalf substation had cameras that were pointed down a
chain-link fence that surrounded the equipment yard containing the
transformers. But the picture quality was poor and it failed to
capture images of the gunmen, who stood outside the fence line and
fired rounds into the substation from a pasture.
Utilities are looking at physical security in a new light, as a
result of the Metcalf attack. The Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission has said it would enact new rules for physical security
of key substations this summer. Utilities are expected to develop
security plans for a handful of the most important substations that
will include a review by independent experts to make sure security
measures are adequate.
Write to Rebecca Smith at rebecca.smith@wsj.com
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