NTSB: Key Documents About Line 132 Still Missing

The National Transportation Safety Board released 3,000 new pages of documents today related to its investigation of the Sept. 9, 2010, pipeline explosion.

The documents include PG&E transcripts, reports from the , and video and other reports from the city's near Line 132—the pipeline that exploded in the Crestmoor neighborhood—that PG&E has repeatedly suggested was a factor leading to the rupture.

Minutes later, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. released a statement thanking the NTSB for their investigation and latest release of documents.

"The NTSB’s continued work to determine the cause of this tragic accident is critical in helping PG&E and the industry understand what steps need to be taken to avoid a future accident like the one in San Bruno," the utility said in a statement. "As before, we will update our improvement plans based on these latest findings without delay."

The new information reveals or confirms the following:

• The California Public Utilties Commission conducted audits of PG&E's integrity management program, which spells out how the utility ensures the safety and proper maintenance of its pipelines, in 2005 and 2010, and found several shortcomings in the 2005 audit: a finding that PG&E's integrity management process and overall documentation needed to be "more robust," and that the periodic evaluation of the program wasn't sufficient enough to identify new threats to the safety of the utility's pipelines.
• The CPUC's audit also showed that consultants hired by PG&E to evaluate its integrity management program said PG&E was slow to address concerns about its pipelines and used loopholes to avoid examining concerns found in its inspections. In one case, PG&E was required to excavate an area found problematic within 365 days but instead took 27 months to complete the examinations.
• Although PG&E still can't find documents that show exactly how Line 132 was built when the segment of pipeline was installed in the Crestmoor neighborhood in 1956, the NTSB believes the line was most likely manufactured by Consolidated Western. Since the explosion, PG&E has been that ruptured and whether it was pieced together with scrap metal. Using internal camera inspections, PG&E determined that pipe from three other lines was used to build Line 132 when it was installed in 1956. However, a former mechanical engineer who worked at Consolidated Western's South San Francisco plant told investigators that pipe that had previously failed was cut and sold as scrap metal and that multipe pipe segments were never allowed to be joined together by the company.
• A home video a former San Bruno resident took of the city's near Line 132 put the spotlight again on whether the sewer project may have prompted the explosion. However, the contractor, D'Arcy and Harty, said there was nothing uncommon about the way the job, known as pipebursting, was done. 
• In terms of cost, PG&E has shelled out more than $8.5 million to residents for emergency expenses related to the fire and more than $18.9 million to the city to pay for expenses related to responding to the fire and its aftermath. In 2010, the utility also spent $220 million on damage claims tied to the explosion. 

This latest cache of documents comes as the NTSB is set to release its final report on Aug. 30 that will show what caused the tragic explosion, which left eight people dead, 38 homes destroyed and more than 60 people injured.