Seismic Network in Jeopardy

When Caltech scientists Egill Hauksson and Tom Heaton told me the TriNet system of hundreds of seismic stations, painstakingly constructed over the past five years, could be jeopardized through a lack of

$2 million in annual maintenance money as early as 2001, I could scarcely believe it.

After all, the system, funded thus far by federal and state grants and a few private gifts, has already paid consumers spectacular benefits.

When the magnitude 7.1 Hector Mine earthquake occurred in the Mojave desert last Oct. 16, within minutes there was a picture of the quake on the Internet for all consumers to see. It showed the areas of rupture, the shaking patterns throughout Southern California and all potential damage zones, information that is not only of immediate value, but also of potential use as subsequent insurance issues arise.

Out in the middle of nowhere, this wasn’t a destructive quake. Had it been in an urban area, however, the information developed by TriNet, which will total 670 stations by 2001, would have been vital to rescue efforts.

In the 1994 Northridge and the 1989 Loma Prieta quakes, 6.7 or larger, which were in urban areas, the authorities, without such a system, failed to catch on promptly to some serious damage zones, notably in Sherman Oaks, Santa Monica and Santa Cruz.

With TriNet in the future, in what conceivably could be a quake 10 times more powerful, far more could be at stake than just knowing about serious damage. Seeing in minutes where to focus rescue efforts could save lives.

And this is not to even mention that many of these stations give a record of strong motions that can instruct researchers how to build safer buildings to withstand the temblors of the future.

Still, the scientists at Caltech, the U.S. Geological Survey and the California Division of Mines and Geology who have been assembling the system, are uneasy. The grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the survey and, to a lesser extent, the state, that came after Northridge are running out, and efforts to secure replacement money, at least for maintenance, have been sputtering.

Congress has been deliberating for two years whether to authorize a $170.8-million, five-year effort to create an Advanced National Seismic System, which would fold in Southern California’s TriNet. Half the 6,000 stations would be in California. But progress has been slow. Sometimes Easterners are leery of programs that seem to disproportionately benefit the Golden State.

A promising alternative would be a state budget “May revise” that would provide the $2 million in maintenance money for the Southland through the Office of Emergency Services, plus perhaps another $4 million to expand and maintain a similar system in the Bay Area and elsewhere in Northern California.

But my inquiries indicated that the revise wasn’t going anywhere. Sandy Harrison, a spokesman for the Department of Finance, checked twice, but said that with the deadline for action approaching, no request for it from the Davis administration had even been received.

The director of the Office of Emergency Services, Dallas Jones, told me that discussions about funding a continuation of TriNet were “only in a preliminary stage.”

Richard McCarthy, executive director of the Seismic Safety Commission, said that on Feb. 16 he had recommended either a revise or funding legislation to Mary Ann McMullin in the governor’s office, but had heard nothing since.

Michael Bustamante, the governor’s press secretary, at first denied that McMullin worked in the governor’s office, but, on further checking, confirmed she did. Still, he indicated a revise could wait. Maybe, he suggested, the federal government would provide the money.

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All this, it seemed to me, indicated the scientists could not rely on the state to come up with any money for 2001.

But I called Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office to check a report that she was working on a bill including some federal funding.

Feinstein agreed to be interviewed and assembled pertinent staff in a conference call. She said she would send an aide to the Geological Survey headquarters to determine what was required.

But Feinstein also mentioned that Gov. Gray Davis, in a conversation with her, had expressed concern that such systems had “early warning” aspects that could embarrass authorities and concern the public by sending out “false alarms” of impending quakes.

These reservations, Feinstein hinted, could be affecting her own views on the maintenance funding, although she tends to be supportive.

When the state’s senior senator said this, it suddenly all came together for me. No wonder the state budget revise was going nowhere.

Davis, apparently, had received distorted information from someone. The TriNet system does not now, but may in the future, have early warning capabilities. At first, this new technology will only be tested. While it is conceivable that a false report of shaking could be sent by erring instruments in the tests, it would go only to the scientists, not to the public. In any case, it would never be predictive in nature.

Eventually, after the testing, TriNet may be able to report to utilities and other monitors that a major quake has begun many miles away. If, in such a future scenario, a big quake started in El Centro, 200 miles from Los Angeles, it would take a minute or two before shaking extended to L.A. During that time, a utility monitoring TriNet might be able to begin to shut down systems in L.A. Perhaps, at a later stage of development, it might even be possible to shut down elevators in high-rise buildings, stop trains and so forth. But this would take years.

I reported Feinstein’s account of the word from Davis to Bustamante and other administration officials.

Bustamante insisted the governor does understand the nature of TriNet. “It is currently fully funded,” he said. “If necessary, it will be folded into the Office of Emergency Services budget next year.”

I hope that commitment holds, and the work already done is not wasted.

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Ken Reich can be contacted with your accounts of true consumer adventure at (213) 237-7060 or by e-mail at ken.reich@latimes.com.