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October 21, 2011 at 12:57 am By Roz Potter
From the SF Chronicle: Link
SAN BRUNO –
State regulators have uncovered evidence that suggests Pacific Gas and Electric Co. installed “salvaged or junked transmission pipe” on its natural-gas system in the 1940s and ’50s, raising fears that a problem like the one that caused the San Bruno disaster could be lurking undetected, officials said in a regulatory filing Wednesday.
The California Public Utilities Commission’s investigation of PG&E’s record-keeping problems before the September 2010 pipeline explosion in San Bruno that killed eight people has uncovered “documents that appear to demonstrate PG&E’s historic reuse of salvaged or junked transmission pipe,” according to the filing by commission attorney Robert Cagen.
“These documents clearly raise serious safety concerns,” Cagen wrote.
Evidence under wraps
His filing did not specify which of the 90,000 documents that PG&E has given to commission investigators indicated the use of salvaged transmission pipe. Cagen wrote that investigators want to release the documents, but that PG&E has made a blanket assertion of confidentiality for much of what it has handed to the state.
***
Cagen suggested in his filing that regulators have found other “documents demonstrating that PG&E has accepted known poor and marginal welds, and then placed pipes with these poor or marginal welds into service” on the Peninsula pipeline, known as Line 132.
“Indeed, the NTSB determined that PG&E was aware as early as 1948 that it had placed transmission pipes into service on Line 132 with poor welds in them,” Cagen wrote.
He said he is seeking a “blanket rule favoring disclosure” of PG&E’s documents to “facilitate faster sharing of information in order to meet immediate public safety concerns.”
Posted in Community Preparedness, Fire Safety, Infrastructure Failure, Public Safety | No Comments »
October 1, 2010 at 3:26 pm By Roz Potter
This is not the promised second installment about natural gas components and their potentially harmful health effects. That report must wait. Meanwhile, there have been several disclosures about gas pipelines that deserve a wider audience.
But first, sadly, one of the San Bruno burn victims died last week, raising the death toll to 8. Several victims are still in burn units and will require many painful debridements, skins grafts and significant physical and occupational therapy in the days and years to come. Take a moment to offer prayers, cards, letters, or donations. For cash donations, see this article.
Here are some important updates and disclosures:
1. In a 9/15/2010 interview conducted on KQED radio, Professor Jean-Pierre Bardet, chair of the University of Southern California’s civil- and environmental-engineering department, stated that poor grade steel was the only option for pipelines manufactured and installed 50 or 60 years ago, such as the 1956 vintage high pressure gas transmission pipeline that exploded in San Bruno. It was 54 years old — and it was not slated for replacement. 50 years is “right around the life expectancy for steel pipes”, according to a 9/14/10 Associated Press article.
2. A document PG&E filed with the California Public Utilities Commission, showed that “significant amounts of liquids” had caused corrosion in four of PG&E’s Bay Area natural gas pipelines, including the San Bruno high pressure pipeline that exploded on September 9. See source.
3. The primary method PG&E uses to check for corrosion problems in pipelines is considered inferior by many experts. See source. According to the article, the utility plans to use the flawed method to check 72% of its urban lines. This electronic mapping method, known (euphemistically) as direct assessment, was used in Nov. 2009 to assess the San Bruno pipeline section that exploded. PG&E says it passed.
The article cites Richard Kuprewicz, a pipeline safety expert in Redmond, Washington, who says that electronic mapping can only estimate the extent of corrosion – and “only in areas the poles can reach”. Workers walk the pipeline inserting devices that look like ski poles.
But areas of the 1107 miles of pipeline that are under cities and towns, and some of the many thousands of miles of pipes elsewhere, are inaccessible. Need I add that the success of this assessment method is entirely dependent upon the training, and competence of PG&E employees charged with this task, and the care they take in executing their duties, hour after hour, mile after mile. Add my name to the skeptic’s list.
Jim Hall, a private consultant and former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, who was also quoted in the article, said “the technique is so antiquated that it should not be allowed in urban areas”.
Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, a non-profit organization created out of a 1999 pipeline explosion in Bellingham, Washington that killed three people, stated that direct assessment was a “compromise” that ended up in the regulations.
According to the article, the gold standard for pipeline corrosion assessment is a device called a “pig”. A pig is “a cylindrical instrument, as long as 25 feet, that measures ultrasound vibrations or magnetic field waves to check for corrosion or tiny cracking that would escate direct assessment techniques”. A pig is inserted into a pipe. But it has its limitations too. It cannot be used on small or sharply curved or bent sections of pipeline.
4. Corrosion is not the only problem that can weaken pipes. Cracking, fatigue due to age, and elevated gas line pressures are also dangers. Yet corrosion is the only problem measured by direct assessment.
5. Critics point out that utilities have been under pressure for years to step up inspections and pipe replacement schedules. The regulatory system is ripe for problems because standards largely leave it up to the utility companies to to do inspections and spend the money necessary to properly fix and replace decrepit pipes. These corporations legally answer to shareholders first and the public second.
As previously pointed out in the first post on this topic, an investigative reporter from the Washington Independent found that the oversight agency, PHMSA, has adopted a number of industry standards that were written by two powerful trade and lobbying groups. See the article here.
6. Another article published 9/27/10 on the CBS News San Francisco website, reports that federal records analyzed by the LA Times show that PG&E pipelines leak at a rate that is 6 times the average of other large pipeline operators. And that high rate is for pipelines PG&E controls near population centers and environmentally sensitive areas, known as “high consquence” areas. The San Bruno pipeline was in such a high consequence area.
7. One of the biggest dangers to pipelines is posed by earthquakes. Earthquakes are indescriminate when it comes to rupturing pipes. Gas pipelines are not flexible. They don’t bend, they crack and break. Pipelines that run through areas prone to liquifaction, such as sandy or loose soils or infill areas around bays and other waterfronts, are extremely susceptible to underground stresses, such as earthquakes or other natural soil shifting. Even a pipe in good condition can rupture during an earthquake.
There are 296,00 miles of onshore natural-gas pipelines. More than 60% of the pipelines are 40 years old or older. And most of the older pipelines lack anticorrosion coatings.
Would you, family members and employees know what to do in a variety of emergencies, where seconds count? It’s time to find out.
Posted in Fire Safety, Infrastructure Failure | No Comments »
September 14, 2010 at 4:57 pm By Roz Potter
Like the male protagonist in Stanley Kubrick’s famously opaque film, we are living through a period that has taken us from a state of relative innocence, (“Eyes Wide Shut”), to one of disbelief, discomfort, and outrage as events unfold in our communities, and the world.
We don’t usually see the underside of the lifestyle and conveniences we enjoy. Much of our complex and specialized world is left to experts to decipher and decide upon, until extraordinary events force us to take a look for ourselves. Friday’s disaster in San Bruno, California was one such event.
News stories in the days following the tragedy have revealed significant cracks in the veneer of safety presumed to exist for the delivery of natural gas (and other utilities?) to our homes. For one, many homes have been built directly over or very near large natural gas transmission pipelines that carry gas under high pressure, and homebuyers and owners are not informed. We now know that the 30 inch pipe that exploded was installed more than a half century ago. And, it was buried just 3 feet underground, part of a network of aging pipelines that carry our water, waste, gas and electricity.
In case you missed it, an online article in Sunday’s San Jose Mercury News adds to our concerns. It cites a document submitted by PG&E last year to the State Public Utilites Commission that identified the need to replace 7500 feet of 30 inch pipeline in the area due to the “likelihood of a failure at this location…”, although the exact section was not identified. In a related development also cited in the article, neighbors learned that a contractor who replaced aging sewer pipes 2 years ago in the same intersection as the burst gas pipeline, used a method known as “pipe bursting”.
According to the website of one company that sells a pipe bursting tool which it says is used in 90% of all pipe bursting in North America, the technique shatters existing sewer lines with percussion and then “displaces remaining (pipe) fragments into the surrounding soil” as new pipe is simultaneously pulled in behind the bursting tool. Residents are spared the disruption of trench digging and road closures but ground shaking and movement and the force of ramming old pipe fragments into surrounding soil may well damage nearby pipelines, including gas transmission lines. These disclosures are now added to prior revelations: That residents reported a gas leak days or weeks prior to the explosion, which PG&E denies; the inadequacy of energy and pipeline safety regulations as well as their enforcement; and PG&E’s questionable safety record.
Are we missing other crucial information about natural gas or its transmission that could place our health and safety at risk? Unequivically yes. These matters, including the components and byproducts of natural gas and their effects, will be explored in the next installment of “Eyes Wide Shut”.
Posted in Fire Safety, Infrastructure Failure | 1 Comment »
September 10, 2010 at 12:14 pm By Roz Potter
1906, a massive earthquake hit San Francisco. Much of the city was leveled, not by the earthquake but by fires that erupted in its aftermath. One pipeline that carried water from San Andreas Lake to San Francisco was broken, leaving little water to fight the fires.
1989, a large earthquake centered in the Santa Cruz Mountains topled buildings in several counties, destroyed a section of the SF Bay Bridge and multiple sections of the Crypress Freeway in Oakland, and severely damaged many other highways, bridges, pipelines and connections to homes, sewer systems and other infrastructure. Massive fires erupted from broken gas lines in the Marina district of San Francisco, one of several areas where damage was severe, in this case due to soil liquifaction.
September 9, 2010, at 6 PM, just as many people were sitting down to dinner, a massive inferno erupted from a break in a 24 inch natural gas pipeline in the hills of San Bruno, California, just south of San Francisco. Scores of homes have been destroyed, at least 6 lives lost and dozens have suffered burn injuries, some critical.
These tragic incidents underscore our vulnerability to crumbling infrastructure and earthquakes which rupture underground pipes, large and small, including gas lines. The released gas can be ignited into a flash fire by any electrical or mechanical device that can generate sparks including light switches, motor vehicles and generators, among others. The strike of a match, the click of a lighter or a barbeque igniter, or the pilot light of a water heater or stove can result in an inferno.
A gas leak should be one of our first concerns after an earthquake, or anytime a blowing, hissing or roaring sound is heard, or a gas odor is detected in, around, or under a building. Any appreciable sound or odor should be cause for alarm and immediate action. An earthquake need not be severe to cause a significant gas leak, due to the age or condition of gas pipelines. If you detect a leak inside, open a window and quickly leave the building. If it is safe to do so, turn off the main valve outside. Call the gas company from a safe place. The events of yesterday will inform our actions about exterior gas leaks, at least in the short term. If in doubt, quickly gather your family and leave.
Unless you are certain there are no gas leaks, do not use open flames (lighters, matches, torches, grills, fireplaces, woodstoves, or operate any electrical or mechanical device that can generate sparks. As noted above, the latter includes light switches, generators, and motor vehicles. This means grabbing for flashlights and headlights, instead of light switches and informing your family and neighbors to do the same.
All gas leaks must be reported at once, whatever the cause. Please give due consideration to evacuating on your own, before official advisories are issued.
On Christmas Eve day in 2008, a natural gas explosion in Rancho Cordova, California, a suburb of Sacramento, killed one person and injured 5. It leveled one home and damaged several others. The leak originated from a 2 inch main line that runs under the driveway of the destroyed home, as well as the opposite corner. The same spot had been repaired just eighteen months earlier. One of two couplings used in the repair failed. See the ABC News 10 Sacramento story. At a briefing by the National Transportation Safety Board, neighbors voiced concern that there was no call for evacuation by officials. The NTSB investigator cited in the story, Karl Gunther, stated, “I would say the only thing that sticks out for me, is why it wasn’t evacuated. One neighbor who spoke described the gas smell as a “strong leak”.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), which oversees the nation’s pipelines, reported 265 “significant” incidents in the US last year, resulting in 14 deaths, 63 injuries and more than 150 million in property damage, according to one of three related stories on pipeline safety published in the blog of The Washington Independent, an online news source.
According to the story, a 2002 law requires inspection of pipes in populated areas (“high consequence areas”), but “there are no federal laws or regulations to ensure that houses and commercial buildings are constructed a safe distance away from pipelines” – no setback requirement. It is the job of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to oversee the nation’s pipelines. But the story’s author, Andrew Restuccia, points out in the article that PHMSA has adopted a number of industry standards that were written by two powerful trade and lobbying groups, the American Petroleum Institute and the American Gas Association. These standards include critical safety issues including pipeline welding, evaluating the strength of corroded pipelines and testing of pipeline pressure.
The Pipeline Safety Trust, a non-profit group that advocates for safe fuel transportation, has set up a website with information about the San Bruno pipeline incident. Included is a map of PG&E’s natural gas pipelines in San Bruno and PG&E’s safety record. The latter does not include the Rancho Cordova incident described above as the utility company for Sacramento is not PG&E but SMUD, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. Correction: PG&E is the gas supplier for Sacramento area and was held responsible for the 2008 Rancho Cordova gas explosion. Perhaps someone knows why the Rancho Cordova incident is not listed in the PG&E safety record posted on The Pipeline Safety Trust website?
Posted in Earthquake Preparedness, Fire Safety, Infrastructure Failure, Preparedness Ideas & Lessons | 2 Comments »
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