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Nearly 50 residents and community leaders gathered in Norco early Thursday morning, Oct. 9, to continue their decade-long fight to bury electrical lines that will traverse the city to help shore up power grid connections in nearby Riverside.
Residents met up at the Ingalls Event Center before joining a caravan to the California Public Utilities Commission meeting in Bellflower to advocate for burying the lines for the Riverside Transmission Reliability Project, a joint project between Riverside and Southern California Edison.
Pointing to a recent U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit against Edison for its alleged role in the deadly Eaton fire that ravaged Altadena, Norco residents say they have serious concerns about fire safety and want to see the power lines for the utility’s Riverside project buried underground. The project, already approved by the CPUC, is currently designed to run power lines along towers up to 180 feet tall above the Santa Ana River through Norco and Jurupa Valley to Riverside.
“I live seven houses down” from the riverbed, Norco resident Tonja Bambrook said. “If another fire breaks out, then my house will catch on fire.”
The CPUC did not have the project on its agenda, so no action was expected. The commission is based in San Francisco but it holds meetings elsewhere in the state and accepts public comment in person and virtually.
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Norco City Councilmember Robin Grundmeyer shows support to Norco residents on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, who are traveling 40 miles to advocate for undergrounding the Riverside Transmission Reliability Project. (Photo by Madison Hart, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
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Norco City Councilmember Robin Grundmeyer shows support to Norco residents on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, who are traveling 40 miles to advocate for undergrounding the Riverside Transmission Reliability Project. (Photo by Madison Hart, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Tuesday morning, Norco community members were adorned in bright yellow shirts, the color chosen as a warning, with a message: “Safety starts underground. Stop the fires. Bury the wires.”
Norco City Councilmember Robin Grundmeyer met up with residents to offer them support for their trip.
“This is incredibly important to the city of Norco,” Grundmeyer said. “Because we want to make sure we take every step possible to make sure our residents are safe, our community is safe.”
Eileen Wilcott, another Norco resident, said high power lines elevate concerns about fire risks, habitat damage, flood risks, and quality-of-life impacts such as scarring the landscape and reducing property values.
“This is the wrong project in the wrong place,” Wilcott said. “The river crossing must be underground. I urge you to stand with Norco and demand (Southern California Edison) do the right thing.”
For nearly a decade, Norco officials have pushed back against the design for the transmission project that is meant to address Riverside’s concerns about power outages related to its current connection to the power grid. Edison has been developing plans for a second grid connection for years.
In October 2023, the CPUC authorized Edison to construct the project as designed. The Riverside City Council voted in May 2024 to proceed with the project rather than redesign it to bury the power lines. Construction of the project is now in the hands of Edison.
The transmission lines will run from the utility’s Mira Loma Substation in Ontario to the Wildlife Substation in Riverside, along the Santa Ana River. Total project cost is estimated at $730 million. Riverside’s portion for the project is about $208.8 million. Officials say the transmission lines will be completed by 2029.
Burying the lines has already been rejected by the CPUC, however, so a path toward changing the project remains unclear. Norco residents say they are not giving up.
“All right, let’s get this party on the bus,” one community member said as residents boarded for their trip to urge the CPUC to reconsider their plight.
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