PG&E Denies Problems With Second Major Peninsula Pipeline
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - Pacific Gas and Electric has responded to allegations that its other major peninsula gas pipeline is at risk of failure. Specifically, concerns were recently raised that welds - similar to the ones that may have contributed to last year's deadly natural gas explosion in San Bruno - existed in this second peninsula pipe.
KCBS' Doug Sovern Reports:
In short, PG&E denies that this "other" major peninsula gas pipeline is at risk of failure. In fact, the utility says, so far, inspections show the Bay Area's other major gas lines are safe.
Under questioning this week by the state Public Utilities Commission, PG&E officials maintained that inspectors have found no other pipelines with the same conditions as Line 132, which blew up last September, killing eight people.
"We haven't completed all the digs on line 132 or line 109 but there hasn't been anything found that is of, I would call it, a significant surprise," declared PG&E vice president of gas engineering and operations, Kirk Johnson.
Line 109 runs from Milpitas to San Francisco, and PG&E hasn't been able to find any records yet to definitively prove one five-mile San Bruno segment of it is safe. But, Johnson is confident it is.
"At this point in time we don't have any reason to believe we have that situation (similar to the San Bruno pipe) anywhere else," he said. "But we're certainly going to look and make sure we don't have it anywhere else."
He also offered some details about the utility's efforts to protect the pipes from damage in an earthquake, discussing special v-shaped trenches that would allow the earth to move in a quake without rupturing a pipeline.
"You can design special trenches that allow the earth to move but the pipe not to have to move ... filled with sand, if you will, it will just move around the pipeline," described Johnson.
Still, he cautioned that PG&E wasn't ready to embrace the idea of shutting off gas lines if an earthquake prediction system like Japan's is installed here. He suggested the utility could take other steps to keep tremors from rupturing the lines.
"I want to make sure that a prediction system is very, very good because if I'm shutting off gas to 800,000 customers in San Francisco Bay Area on a feel that I might have an earthquake, those individuals would be out of gas for a very, very long time."
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