Senate Hearing Spotlights San Bruno Explosion

The U.S. Senate held a hearing Tuesday to discuss pipeline safety in the wake of last year’s deadly pipeline explosion in San Bruno. 

The hearing, which featured testimony from top officials at the National Transportation Safety Board, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, PG&E, and pipeline safety advocates, was meant to provide an update and discuss efforts on the national level to reform the regulation and management of pipeline safety.

According to the Department of Transportation, over the past decade, there have been 42 serious gas pipeline incidents on average annually, resulting in an average of 14 deaths, 16 injuries and more than $32 million in property damage.

The San Bruno inferno erupted on Sept. 9, 2010, in the Crestmoor neighborhood when a 54-year-old PG&E distribution pipeline ruptured. It leveled the community, killing eight people, injuring 52 others, and destroying 38 homes.

The following are snippets of testimony from the hearing: 

Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, chairman of Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, spoke of his support for the new pipeline safety bill making its way through Congress and seemed to believe that the legislation would finally lead to meaningful changes in the pipeline industry. 

Although pipeline transportation has proven to be relatively safe, recent incidents over the past year-and-a-half have made it all too clear that more needs to be done to improve pipeline safety.  Gas pipeline explosions in San Bruno, California as well as Allentown and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania left more than twelve people dead and destroyed or damaged over one hundred homes.  Oil pipeline ruptures in Michigan and Montana wreaked havoc on nearby environmental systems, the damages of which have not yet fully been accounted for or remediated.  We can and must do more to avoid events like these in the future.

Among other things, our bipartisan bill does the following:

• Increases the use of excess flow valves in multi-family buildings and commercial facilities to prevent unnecessary explosions; 

• Requires the use of remote controlled and automatic shut-off valves to quickly stop gas from flowing through a pipeline when a rupture occurs; and 

• Removes exemptions from “call before you dig” requirements to protect contractors from hitting pipelines during construction projects—one of the leading causes of pipeline accidents.  It also requires operators to verify records and reestablish lines’ maximum operating pressure.  It also increases public awareness efforts about pipeline locations and inspection activities. 

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said she felt a personal connection to the explosion because it happened in her own congressional backyard. She said she has been deeply disturbed by the fact that no one knew what was underground before the San Bruno blast, and that the lack of knowledge about pipelines exists throughout the country.

Like 61 percent of all pipelines in the United States, the pipeline had been grandfathered. Sixty-one percent of all pipelines have been grandfathered, meaning regulators and the industry assumed it was safe to continue operating the pipeline at pressures used in the past. 

No safety buffer was established, as would have been established during a normal pressure test that pushes the pipe to 125 percent of the approved Maximum Allowable Operating Pressure. 

She also said: 

The problems that led to tragedy in San Bruno are not unique to that neighborhood or that pipeline. They are widespread throughout the United States. 

Many older pipelines in urban areas have inaccurate and incomplete records, have never been pressure tested or inspected by smart pigs, and lack automatic or remote-controlled shutoff valves capable of limiting damage following a rupture.

And Feinstein added: 

The Department of Transportation should also consider ordering untested pipelines to lower their pressures to establish a safety buffer, as the California Public Utilities Commission has chosen to do.

 Cynthia Quarterman, the PHMSA administrator, mentioned that the NTSB’s investigation found the federal agency partly at fault, along with the CPUC, in causing the San Bruno accident.

In response to recommendations made by the NTSB following the blast, she said PHMSA would take a number of steps to better their pipeline regulatory efforts, including assisting the CPUC in conducting a comprehensive audit of its state gas pipeline safety program and in performing an upcoming evaluation of PG&E’s public awareness program.

PHMSA also will work to improve the CPUC’s understanding and enforcement of integrity management requirements, Quarterman said.

Nick Stavropoulos, PG&E’s vice president of gas operations, also testified before the committee and spoke very positively about the changes the utility has been making since the explosion. Most importantly, he said, PG&E has been taking steps toward building a “safety first” culture within its organizational structure. 

A first step we took to build a “safety first” culture at PG&E was to benchmark against industry leaders to see how we compare and determine what we need to do to become a leading utility. We also separated PG&E’s gas and electric operations and associated functions to ensure clear roles and responsibilities. Now the organizational structure within PG&E’s gas function mirrors the work and precisely defines roles and accountabilities. We are in the process of putting new standards and practices in place that support employee and public safety.

Stavropoulos also spent a significant amount of time explaining the company’s new Pipeline Safety Enhancement Plan, proposed in August to create tougher standards for pipeline safety throughout its system. The plan is still pending approval by the CPUC. 

The PSEP has two phases. Phase 1, which has already begun, will carry through 2014. It targets pipeline segments that are in highly populated urban areas, have vintage seam welds that do not meet modern manufacturing, fabrication, or construction standards or were ”grandfathered” under previous regulations, and have not been strength tested. During this phase, PG&E plans to replace 186 miles of transmission pipelines, strength test more than 780 miles, retrofit about 200 miles to permit in-line inspections, and in-line inspect over 200 miles. In addition, 228 valves will be replaced with automated valves. In Phase 2, PG&E will expand the program to cover the remainder of our gas transmission system.

Bay City News Service contributed to this story.