Subcommittee to Hold Hearing to Develop Action Plan to Improve Utilities’ and CPUC's Safety Communication with California Cities in the Aftermath of the Natural Gas Pipeline Shutdown in San Carlos
WHEN: Monday, Oct. 28, 2013 – 11 a.m.
WHERE: San Carlos City Council Chambers
600 Elm Street, San Carlos 94070
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WHAT: Prompted by new concerns about the safety of Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s natural gas pipelines, a California Senate subcommittee chaired by Sen. Jerry Hill will hold a hearing in San Carlos to explore what should be done by the utility and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to improve communication with local officials.
San Carlos officials said they learned by reading a newspaper story – and not from PG&E – that the utility used flawed documents to improperly declare that a natural gas pipeline in the city is safe. The city’s concerns about Line 147 heightened after officials received copies of internal PG&E emails that raised questions about external corrosion and cracks on the pipeline that could potentially result in an explosion similar to the one in September 2010 that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes in San Bruno.
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San Bruno says that PG&E and the CPUC have not been proactive and effective in meeting their concerns, and San Carlos can only hope that its experience will be more positive. Most recently, the CPUC did not inform San Carlos about a hearing it held on the safety of Line 147 on September 6. Only after San Carlos obtained a court order did the CPUC require PG&E to shut down the pipeline until the company can show it is safe.
Hill, D-San Mateo, chairs the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Subcommittee on Gas and Electric Infrastructure Safety. Officials from San Carlos and San Bruno, as well as a representative of the City/County Association of Governments -- San Mateo County, will testify to Hill’s subcommittee at the hearing. Representatives of PG&E and the CPUC are also expected to appear.
WHEN: Monday, Oct. 28, 2013 – 11 a.m.
WHERE: San Carlos City Council Chambers
600 Elm Street, San Carlos 94070
CONTACT: Leslie Guevarra 415-298-3404 cell; Aurelio Rojas 916-747-3199 cell
BACKROUND: The San Carlos City Council has allocated $250,000 to hire experts to check PG&E’s contention that Line 147 is safe and will ask PG&E to reimburse the city.
“Local governments should not have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to do the work PG&E and the CPUC are supposed to do,” Hill said.
City officials began questioning the safety of the line after receiving internal PG&E emails earlier this month that showed PG&E engineers raised concerns in November 2012 that the pipe was thinner than indicated in PG&E records and showed corrosion.
In one email, a former PG&E engineer who is now a consultant to the company wrote, “Are we sitting on another San Bruno situation?”
The city declared a state of emergency and obtained a court order requiring PG&E to temporarily depressurize the line.
Hill said cities in his district – which covers San Mateo County and a portion of Santa Clara County -- are alarmed by PG&E’s lack of transparency and the CPUC’s failure to adequately regulate the utility. Nearly one year ago the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to ask Governor Brown to select a new CPUC president.
In its investigation of the San Bruno explosion, the National Transportation Safety Board called PG&E “a company that exploited weaknesses in a lax system of oversight …to the detriment of public safety.” The problem, the NTSB found, was “compounded over the years by a litany of failures – including poor recordkeeping (and) inadequate inspection programs.”
NTSB chair Deborah Hersman said the tragedy in San Bruno and a fatal explosion in Rancho Cordova illustrated systemic problems at PG&E.
“Ronald Reagan famously said, `Trust, but verify,’” Hersman said. “For government to do its job – safeguard the public – it cannot trust alone. It must verify through effective oversight.”
Hill noted the Independent Review Panel established by the CPUC recommended the commission’s Safety Division “retain independent industry experts” to “provide a high level of technical oversight” over PG&E.
San Bruno City Manager Connie Jackson said the recent discovery in San Carlos is “an indicator PG&E has not learned” from the explosion in her city. In a legal brief filed with the CPUC, San Bruno officials criticized PG&E for failing to inform the commission about flaws in the San Carlos pipeline in an “open, timely manner.”
San Bruno also renewed its call for the CPUC to hire “an independent monitor with financial, regulatory and gas expertise to not only oversee PG&E operations and accounting on an ongoing bases, but also ensure the utility does not have the opportunity to submit misleading information to the commission under the radar, as PG&E improperly did here.
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Nate Solov
Office of Senator Jerry Hill
916-651-4013
Contact: Leslie Guevarra 415-298-3404 cell; Aurelio Rojas 916-747-3199 cell