The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission has approved atentative settlement agreement with Equitable Gas Co. following anexplosion in September 1998 that killed one person. The explosionoccurred after an Equitable employee failed to accurately mark agas line to a home for repair by Duquesne Light Co. Duquesne Lightthen damaged the line, which caused the explosion in McKeesport,PA.

Under terms of the settlement, Equitable will enhance its damageprevention program by improving the process of how it inspectspipeline facilities, which will require employees to perform siteinspections during and after excavation work to verify theintegrity of a pipeline.

Equitable also will conduct more training for its street crewsand customer service employees, and agreed to spend $100,000 totrain smaller, regulated utilities that may not be able to affordextensive training in damage prevention, leak management and safetyand operator qualification.

Equitable would not be able to recover the costs involved withenhancing its program in any future ratemaking procedure, said thePUC.

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