This month marks the 20th anniversary of PG&E hacking into confidential South San Joaquin Irrigation District files.

A firm hired by PG&E sent an “intern” to district board meetings at the headquarters just outside of Manteca’s city limits on East Highway 120.

While board members were grilling staff in a bid to make sure irrigation service was being delivered as efficiently as possible at the lowest cost to customers, the PG&E operative was busy in the back of the room typing away on a laptop.

He gained access into the general manager’s computer, browsed 31 files, and proceeded to download financial analysis data and strategic legal files that had to do with the district’s effort to use legal channels embedded in the California constitution that allows irrigation districts such as SJID to potentially take over chunks of PG&E.

This came a year after PG&E hired the document retrieval firm known as Ikon at $25 per hour to go through 10 years of SSJID cancelled checks.

PG&E was searching for information to embarrass the SSJID while asserting they were just making sure the public knew just how much money the irrigation district was spending on state mandated studies required to enter the utility business.

PG&E found nothing amiss but a month or so later, a PG&E  government relations representative stood up during the public comment portion of an SSJID meeting and demanded director Ralph Roos reveal who paid for the shirt he was wearing that had an SSJID logo on it.

Roos replied he did.

Once it got out that PG&E had in its possession confidential files they had lifted from the SSJID general manager’s computer, the for-profit utility went into damage control mode.

PG&E sent a disk, with the stolen information, to SSJID a week after the information came into their possession.

They said once they opened the email with the highly sensitive data pilfered from SSJID, it was immediately closed.

PG&E fired the consulting firm and immediately called the FBI and US Attorney General’s Office about the matter.

Essentially, they were trying to frame the conversation as if they were the victims and not SSJID.

SSJID, whose confidential files were hacked by a consulting firm hired by PG&E to put the irrigation district under a magnifying glass to find something to use against them, didn’t sit still for that spin.

They countered that SSJID was the victim, and not PG&E, and was pondering requesting a criminal investigation.

Meanwhile, the consulting firm said it was considering suing PG&E.

The SSJID hired a forensics commuter expert given they had 715 files pertaining to their bid to legally take over the PG&E service territory in Manteca, Ripon, and Escalon.

PG&E, within months, wrote SSJID a check in excess of $200,000 to cover costs the irrigation district incurred to verify what files the for-profit’s contractor had accessed of SSJID’s while hired to essentially go after SSJID.

The 2005 dust up happened a year into the SSJID’s effort to purchase the SSJID’s retail system using powers vested in the California constitution for the public gold.

But that wasn’t the first run SSJID made after PG&E to take over their territory in Manteca, Ripon, and Escalon.

The first time was in 1997 basically at the invitation of PG&E.

PG&E, in order to secure the approval of the California Legislature to semi-deregulate electricity within the state, proposed a provision where they agreed they would work with any irrigation district wanting to get into the retail electric business to do so plus provide five years of exemption to CTC charges.

That is shorthand for competitive transmission charges PG&E and other transmission system providers are allowed to charge other power providers to use their lines to transport electricity to other retail distributing systems.

PG&E, just like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown to kick, offered up three different alternatives to help SSJID get into the retail power business.

The first was an inter-tie near the Delicato winery within the SSJID’s service boundaries.

When SSJID took the bait and responded with a legal offer, PG&E took it off the table.

They then said the Heinz plant in Tracy was a better place for an inter-tie that would have required the SSJID extending lines 10 miles out of their district to reach.

When SSJID took the bait and responded with legal paperwork to close the deal, PG&E changed its mind again.

They then offered up selling SSJID a large swath of power lines that were pre-1925 south of Manteca.

Not only was the distribution system  in need of extensive replacement — every pole had exceeded its useful life about 20 years — the oldest in the region, but it was so sparsely populated with customers and isolated from urban populations that SSJID would incur maximum start-up costs.

Even so, by then the time limit for irrigation districts access the critical CTC exemptions needed for a startup had expired.

PG&E thought they had won.

But then SSJID, able to draw on excess returns in wet years from hydro power generation on the Tri-Dam Project they operate with Oakdale Irrigation District, decided to commit to securing lower rates for local residents, farmers, and businesses through existing options in the California constitution.

SSJID, once a last straw grasp request by PG&E for the California Public Utilities to derail their bid is processed, has two steps left in San Joaquin County Superior Court.

That process is expected to take 18 months or so once the latest PG&E Hail Mary is done at the CPUC level.

That means it would have taken 23 years after every possible delaying and hacking move PG&E could throw at SSJID for it to deliver on its promise to take over the local retail system and deliver electricity at 15 percent less than PG&E.

It would basically match the 23-year struggle Sacramento Municipal Utility District had with PG&E to become a true public owned utility in 1946.

Will the 23-year battle have been worth it?

SMUD’s rates today are, on average, 50 percent lower than PG&E.

And their reliability exceeds that of PG&E with significantly less outages as well as those being for a shorter  time.

And SMUD, unlike PG&E, has never killed off paying customers.

PG&E killed eight customers in the 2010 San Bruno explosion.

Then they killed 87 customers in the 2018 Paradise inferno.

PG&E executives pled guilty to 87 felony counts of manslaughter.

PG&E has killed 95 customers, yet they still hold onto power.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com