PG&E Spells Out Progress on Pipeline Safety Recommendations

Giving a year-end progress report of sorts, PG&E said today that it has made significant improvements to its pipeline safety operations this year on its way to fulfilling a bevy of recommendations federal investigators made following the tragic Sept. 9, 2010, pipeline explosion.

The National Transportation Safety Board at the end of its final report on the Crestmoor neighborhood fire, which concluded that a defective weld in PG&E’s Line 132—in addition to a systemic problem of faulty oversight by the utility over its pipeline safety practices—led to the explosion.

Of those new recommendations, eight were directed at PG&E to fix its operations so that its pipelines would be safer.

PG&E’s efforts to modernize its operations and since the accident are examples of how the utility has been following the NTSB’s guide to improve the safety of its pipelines throughout the state, President Chris Johns said in a statement.

“PG&E has fully embraced the NTSB’s important recommendations, and we’re grateful for the agency’s investigation and direction,” Johns said. “We are united with our regulators in our determination to prevent a tragedy like the San Bruno accident from ever happening again.”

It is not clear from today’s letter how close is PG&E to fulfilling all eight recommendations, but the utility said its , which still needs approval from the California Public Utilities Commission, will go beyond the NTSB’s recommendations as PG&E continues to replace and retrofit lines over the next several years.

PG&E’s update comes as a result of a 90-day deadline NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman issued on Sept. 26, when the federal agency issued the final report on the San Bruno explosion.

The request called for PG&E to work on establishing a comprehensive emergency response plan for disasters involving gas transmission lines—such as the Sept. 9 fire that left eight people dead and 38 homes destroyed—expediting the installation of automatic shutoff valves and incorporating more accountability into the materials it sends out to the public, in addition to making other improvements. (PG&E’s full letter to the NTSB can be read in the attachment.)

Bill Magoolaghan, whose family was one of 38 in the Crestmoor neighborhood who lost everything in the fire, said it would be a huge failure on behalf of PG&E and the CPUC if they didn’t make sure to follow through on the NTSB’s recommendations.

But so far, he said, it has been good to see some progress made, even if it is too late for San Bruno.

“It’s good to see progress made because before the accident, none of these groups—PG&E, the CPUC, PHMSA (the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration)—were doing their jobs,” Magoolaghan said. “So I hope it’s been a real wake-up call for them.”

Ironically, on the same day that PG&E touted the progress it has been making to fulfill the NTSB’s recommendations, an administrative law judge with the CPUC blasted PG&E in a regulatory filing for taking too long to provide the commission’s legal division with documents related to its own investigation of the San Bruno explosion, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

The Mercury News reported the following:

Noting that the delay is hindering completion of the agency's report on the disaster, judge Amy Yip-Kikugawa called it "troubling that PG&E is apparently unable to respond to legal division's data requests in a timely manner."