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As Smoke Clears Investigators Look for Cause of PG&E Pipe Blast
More than a week after an exploding natural gas pipeline ripped through a residential neighborhood in the San Francisco Bay Area, natural gas remained a headline-grabber, involving speculation about city sewer work and oil liquids in the pipeline somehow contributing to the explosion and fire, not to mention various politicians proposing new safety measures. With the heightened attention, routine gas utility distribution pipeline breaks and reports of gas odors were being elevated to the status of potential major news events.
By last Friday, much of the recovery effort was completed, as was a lot of the on-site investigation by federal pipeline authorities, and at least on impression was clear: state, local and utility workers coordinated well in responding to the needs of the people and section of San Bruno that was devastated by the massive explosion and fire that followed the rupture of a 30-inch Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) transmission line on Sept. 9.
The blast dug a 160-feet long and 60-feet deep crater, totally destroying 37 homes while damaging others, and killing at least four people. Several people were still unaccounted for.
One initial area of negative fallout — financial impact from Wall Street — seemed to dissipate by last Friday as the question of the adequacy of PG&E’s $992 million in liability insurance and an initial 8% decline in the utility’s market value the first day after the incident both were pushed into the background.
Several theories are arising about what could have been major contributors to the pipeline failure — municipal sewer replacement work in the immediate area of the blast, oil residue build up inside the pipeline causing corrosion that weakened the line’s integrity, and deferred maintenance and/or repairs on the pipeline near where the failure occurred.
Finally, PG&E found last Friday that even after restoring the power and gas service in homes surrounding the devastated area there was still much clean-up work facing its crews to ensure safety and service reliability in the days and weeks ahead.
The utility continued to be kept under intense scrutiny, the most recent coming from news media reports regarding compressor oil in the high-pressure transmission pipeline.
A document filed by PG&E with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) reportedly suggested that “significant amounts” of liquid in the form of compressor oil may have led to corrosion that caused the pipeline to fail, a report in the San Francisco Chronicle indicated Friday. PG&E’s CPUC filing supposedly said the presence of the liquids were an “ongoing concern” related to their ability to cause corrosion.
Separators were installed on the PG&E pipeline in November, and a utility spokesperson said no liquids have appeared in filtration systems since then.
More broadly around the state and particularly in Sacramento, elected officials and news media followed the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) speculation about a municipal sewer line replacement two years ago that came close to the spot on the PG&E transmission pipeline where the blast occurred. There also were increasing calls for state legislation to add new layers of safety.
Regarding the sewer line work, PG&E records confirmed that it inspected the nearby transmission pipeline before and after the sewer line replacement and found nothing amiss. Media interest, however, focused more intently on the municipal infrastructure work after NTSB Vice Chairman Christopher Hart said the sewer line’s possible role had to be thoroughly examined, although he stressed that no conclusions concerning it had been reached by his agency’s investigation team.
State and Congressional lawmakers representing the areas in and around San Bruno just south of San Francisco began raising questions about the need for tighter safety regulations, such as requiring that any pipelines going through heavily populated areas have automatic, remotely operated shutoff valves. They were responding to the fact that it took PG&E workers in the field more than 1 hour and 45 minutes to manually close valves on the pipeline on either side of the failure.
U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), who represents the San Mateo County suburbs, which include San Bruno, said she plans to introduce legislation on the automatic valve issue next year. And a state Assemblyman Jerry Hill, who represents San Bruno in the lower house in Sacramento, said he would introduce legislation later this year when lawmakers return to try to resolve the state’s budget crisis.
CPUC safety division director Julie Halligan said that there are no federal or state requirements for the automatic valve, and that it is left to the discretion of the pipeline owners, in this case, PG&E.
Last Thursday saw the release of regulatory records showing that PG&E three years ago was approved to spend $5 million to replace a high-risk section of the 30-inch diameter transmission pipeline (Line 132) that failed. The risky section was located north of the blast site, but work was never performed, and this year the utility asked for the $5 million again.
“PG&E claimed it needed money to repair this high-risk pipeline, with an estimated cost of $5 million,” said The Utilities Reform Network Executive Director Mark Toney. “But it failed to spend the money to get the job done.” In the same year the company spent nearly $5 million on bonuses for six of its most highly paid executives alone. “The company’s priorities appear to be skewed,” he said.
PG&E CEO Christopher Johns during a Wednesday night briefing with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the utility’s priorities are constantly shifting. What might have been a top priority at one point in the year could end up being deferred when other, more pressing safety concerns arise, Johns said.
While the NTSB has offered little in the way of new information on its ongoing investigation, its spokesperson at the scene told NGI at one point that a preliminary report will be issued from Washington, DC, in about three weeks, the 30-day report the federal agency is obligated to make. A more definitive report on the probable cause of last week’s incident, which took at least four lives, won’t come for a year, according to NTSB’s Peter Knudson (see separate story).
Regarding the lack of automatic shutoff valves on the failed pipeline, a PG&E senior vice president confirmed Wednesday that it took the utility one hour and 46 minutes to shut manual valves on either side of the explosion. The affected line (Line 132), along with two other PG&E transmission pipelines in the area, are all operating, but at a 20% lower pressure than what was in place when the conflagration struck. The utility has routed gas in Line 132 around the explosion area and supplies continue to flow.
PG&E said it believes it should be able to collect in rates at a future time amounts of damages paid as a result of the pipeline explosion and fire that exceed the $992 million it has in liability insurance.
Early in the aftermath, the CPUC asked for detailed records on the pipeline’s inspection and maintenance during the past five years. PG&E confirmed that the transmission pipeline passed inspection last March and was free of leaks at the time, and the pipeline passed an external inspection for corrosion last November (there was no mention of “internal” corrosion inspections that are the center of the latest focus).
The utility also reported that a check of 95% of all of its service records since July 1 turned up no reports of gas odors in the immediate area of the pipeline failure. There were two calls from residences two or three blocks from the disaster — one reporting gas odors and the other a gas leak at the meter. The odor report turned out not to be a problem, and the meter leak was identified and fixed, PG&E told local news media Tuesday.
Last Monday (Sept. 13) PG&E announced the creation of the “Rebuild San Bruno Fund,” making available up to $100 million for the residents and city of San Bruno. CPUC President Michael Peevey ordered that PG&E evaluate all of its gas transmission lines for safety.
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