“Flawed pipe, flawed inspection and flawed emergency response.”
As the Los Angeles Times reports, those were the key factors cited in a broad safety breakdown leading to the natural gas pipeline disaster in San Bruno, Calif., last year that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes.
That assessment came from Deborah A.P. Hersman, head of the National Transportation Safety Board, which released a synopsis of its findings from its nearly yearlong investigation of the deadly blast.
The probe came down hard on the utility that owned the pipeline, Pacific Gas & Electric, and called the accident “clearly preventable.” The investigators found that the pipeline’s problems dated back to 1956, when the utility failed to provide adequate quality oversight during the pipeline’s construction in the suburban community south of San Francisco.
Hersman faulted the utility for a “litany of failures.”
What’s more, the safety board concluded that weak state and federal regulatory oversight let PGE’s shoddy safety practices persist long after construction was completed. “Our investigation revealed that for years, PG&E exploited weaknesses in a lax system of oversight,” Hersman said. “We also identified regulators that placed a blind trust in the companies that they were charged with overseeing to the detriment of public safety.”
The immediate trigger of the blast, NTSB investigators said Tuesday, was an electrical problem that caused the valves regulating pipeline pressure to open, allowing more gas into the line.
As the pressure built up, inadequate welds in a section of pipe ruptured, allowing 47 million cubic feet of gas — enough to run 12,000 homes for a year — to escape in a plume of fire. Officials said Pacific Gas & Electric lacked an adequate emergency plan and automatic shutoff valves, and took almost 95 minutes to shut off the gas spewing from the pipeline.
In a statement, PG&E said company officials “fully embrace” the safety board’s recommendations. But the company also said that since the Sept. 9 explosion, it has “already taken many immediate and long-term steps to promote safety.”
PGE said that, among other things, it has launched a major initiative to replace or upgrade many older gas lines, stepped up pipeline operating standards and training, added more gas engineers and other staffers, retained leading safety experts and improved coordination with local emergency responders.
The California Public Utilities Commission, which as a state pipeline regulator came under sharp criticism from the NTSB, is due to release its own investigation of the accident late this year.
Related Posts:
Regulators Probe Whether Utility Ignored Warnings of Potential Gas Leaks
After Deadly Blasts, U.S. Pipeline Safety Push Announced
Regulators Eye Lighter Penalty Over California Utility’s Missing Records
