Can you dig it? Call 811 to find out.

The picture you see here is a gas meter. If you're a natural gas user for your furnace, water heater or stove, then you have one of these meters. More importantly, you have a pipe that connects this meter to the main gas line on your street -- and accidentally digging up that pipe is a definite no-no.

What are the odds of that happening? Actually, pretty good. Some 1,400 accidental "dig ups" of our natural gas lines took place in the parts of Western Washington served by PSE last year, and there were some 500 dig ups of electrical cables.

Homeowners, contractors, and excavators -- the range of those who did the damage ran from pros to amateurs.

The solution is to call 811, the free "Call Before You Dig" number two business days before your outdoor project. Anytime you're getting down more than 1 foot into the ground you run the danger of hitting a natural gas line, water pipe, cable TV conduit or whatever else is down there that provides a service to your home or business. In fact, it's state law that if you're digging, you need to be calling 811. For no charge you will get accurate markings of where you can -- and can't -- get busy with that Bobcat or whatnot you rented for the weekend.

If you do smell natural gas (it's actually odorless, but is given a stinky, rotten egg smell through a fragrance that's added in), get to a safe distance and call 911. Then, call PSE at 1-888-225-2773.

EPA in Seattle

The spotlight will be on downtown Seattle today as the Enviromental Protection Agency (EPA) holds a hearing on how to regulate carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases. Two words best describe the process: complex and controversial.

(Update at 1:50 p.m. Here's a link to KING 5's coverage of the hearings, including a look at a rally held at noon).

Following the bouncing ball is a bit difficult if you are interested in tracking what's happening with CO2 and energy regulation these days. Two parallel processes are occurring at the same time: the EPA's move toward acting on greenhouse gases and the Waxman-Markey bill now moving through Congress.

As a federal agency, the EPA is considering making new rules on carbon emissions, following a U.S. Supreme Court decision granting it the ability to treat CO2 as a pollutant due to its role in climate change.

In Congress, the path is legislation, with lawmakers considering Waxman-Markey this week. The bill is about 900 pages long, and covers a range of energy and climate areas from energy efficiency standards and renewable energy standards (such as having utilities get a certain percentage of their energy from the wind or sun) and other topics such as electric vehicles.

Much of this tracks where PSE has been for a while. We opened our first wind facilities in 2005 and 2006, with expansion of our Wild Horse Wind and Solar Facility near Ellensburg taking place this summer and more wind facilities planned along the Lower Snake River in Washington. We also adopted a greenhouse gas policy in 2007, and are now testing two plug-in hybrid electric vehicles to learn more about how transportation alternatives will impact energy demand.

Energy efficiency is also top of mind here, with about 80 different programs for business and residential customers.

Even setting aside climate change, moving into renewable energy we can produce here in our state and our nation makes a lot of sense from an energy-independence standpoint. And, energy efficiency is good for the environment, but also helps preserve the family budget or company bottom line.

Spring Storm ... Surprising?

A little thunder and lightning around the area last night made for a noisy evening, and may have left you wondering if this is typical. Well, here's a classic weatherman waffling answer: yes and no!

The "yes" is that we do tend to have a little more thunder and lightning around here in mid-May through early June than most other times of the year. But we can pop a thunderstorm during most any season. If you've spent much time in the Midwest, East or South this may seem strange, as those parts of the nation are more likely to get thunderstorms during the summer. But, our systems here are a little different kind of animal.

The classic thunderstorm in most of the U.S. comes on a hot and muggy summer day, with the thunder breaking out in the late afternoon or evening. However, in the Pacific Northwest, we are more likely to get storms on chilly days. These are caused by instability in the atmosphere (where some pockets of warm air want to rise and pockets of cool air want to sink - as shown in the "lumpy" looking clouds in this satellite image), with all that up and down causing thunderstorms to form. October, in fact, is a frequent time for thunder, and "thundersnow" isn't unheard of either.

A second culprit is our famous Puget Sound Convergence Zone (nicely defined here by Scott Sistek of KOMO), where the Olympic mountain range acts like a traffic circle -- with some traffic coming around the north, and some around the south -- with the meeting point right over the central Puget Sound. That meeting point forces the air to rise, and that provides the trigger for the light show many saw last night.

Unfortunately, that light show can mean power outages, as it did in Seattle Tuesday evening. The best bet as always is to be prepared for stormy weather anytime. We may get our big storms in the fall, but thunder can bust out anytime. It's dangerous, too, with lightning the leading cause of weather-related fatalities most years in the U.S., with Washington seeing a lightning fatality every few years.

Keeping tabs on the forecast is a smart bet as well. Consider a weatherband radio if you want to stay on top of things 24/7.

Ski, Run, Bike, Swim, Paddle, etc.

It's that season, time to enjoy the great outdoors by exhausting yourself. For me, that means pushing the lawnmower or dislocating a few vertebrae by doing a little weeding in the yard. However, for many of my PSE colleagues it means taking part in one of the many fun runs, triathlons, charity walks and what not that fill the calendar through summer.

That's Scott on skis, Peter running, and Bridget on the bike. They are part of our PSE team that is tackling the Ski to Sea Race -- which covers pretty much the whole gamut of human-powered transportation across Whatcom County. It starts with a downhill ski at Mount Baker and ends with sea kayaking across Bellingham Bay to Fairhaven. In between, it's a lot of sweat, sore muscles and Gatorade.

The event is sponsored by the Bellingham Chamber of Commerce and really demonstrates part of what makes the Puget Sound area so unique. There just aren't too many places where you can go from sea level to mountain glaciers and stay in the same area code.

We like being part of this region, and in fact, in some form or another PSE has been here for since 1873.

If you're in Whatcom County this weekend and you see our Ski to Sea team zooming past (or huffing and puffing), give'em a cheer!

Unusual Climate

It's not what you expect - the head of a major utility and the leader of an influential environmental group finding common ground on a challenging issue. In this case, the EPA's role in regulating carbon dioxide, a major component in climate change.

KC Golden of Climate Solutions joins Steve Reynolds, PSE CEO, in an opinion piece out today on how to approach climate change. The discussion is timely: on Thursday the EPA will hold a public hearing in Seattle on how to approach carbon dioxide as a pollutant responsible for global warming.

Whether you're a climate change believer or skeptic, many of the global warming solutions strike me as making sense for a lot of reasons - saving money through energy efficiency, reducing air pollution emissions in general (particulates, mercury, sulfur) and greater energy independence through renewable energy sources we can do build right here at home.

Way to go, Redmond!

Congratulations to the mighty Mustangs of Redmond High School, now named as one of the greenest high schools in the U.S. The designation came as part of a contest from a school-bus maker from Illinois, and if Redmond is named the winner the Lake Washington School District will receive a hybrid school bus.

One reason for Redmond's top score is some work they've done with Puget Sound Energy, including our Cool Schools Challenge and solar schools programs. These programs, along with the Powerful Choices program for middle-schoolers, help teach how the choices we make in energy shape the environment and the economy.

Working with kids is an important part of making the changes we need in how we produce and use energy. I think of it as being similar to recycling, which really took off after kids learned about it in school -- and then came home and gave Mom and Dad no peace until the paper, cardboard and pop cans were out of the trash and off to the recycling center.