After my September 9, 2010, E-FORUM “Richmond closer to agreements on underground pipelines,” several readers informed me that they could not access the National Pipeline Mapping System to see what pipelines are in Richmond. The reason is that the San Bruno explosion caused so many people to go to the website, it was shut down
It is now working, and you can look up Richmond. I also copied the Richmond map which you can view by clicking on Richmond Pipelines. As you can see, Richmond, San Pablo and North Richmond are crisscrossed by pipelines carrying natural gas and hazardous liquids, and they are located primarily in streets in residential neighborhoods, in front of schools and in parks.
One of the objections raised in the recently adopted (first reading) Richmond Pipeline Ordinance is that it is redundant, that other agencies are responsible for pipeline safety so why should Richmond adopt another layer. These same arguments are typically raised by industry whenever Richmond considers regulations or land use conditions that involve toxic emissions into the air or water, hazardous wastes, or operational dangers.
The San Bruno incident illustrates one reason why local government should get involved. We simply can’t trust national, state and regional regulators to be totally responsible for our safety. This has been proved time and again, including with the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster. As one of the stories below notes:
The Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002 - inspired by killer explosions in a gas pipeline in New Mexico and a gasoline pipeline in Washington State - called for mandatory "baseline" inspections for leaks in all natural gas pipelines nationwide within 10 years of the act. Riskier pipelines were to get those thorough exams within five years.
A decade later, federal and state oversight still relies on staffs that are stretched thin. There are fewer than a hundred federal inspectors and around 300 state inspectors nationwide, according to the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. California has only nine inspectors responsible for natural gas and propane pipelines.
Taking into account 2.5 million miles of pipeline nationwide - including all types - that makes the inspectors responsible for at least 6,000 miles of line each, even more in California.
Another story describes PG&E’s history:
The explosion that devastated a San Bruno neighborhood captured the nation's attention, but it is hardly the first tragedy involving a Pacific Gas & Electric natural gas pipeline
Between 1986 and last month, PG&E had 132 "significant incidents" with its natural gas transmission and distribution pipelines, according to records from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
Those incidents resulted in 18 fatalities, 64 injuries and $41 million in property damage. They were caused by a variety of problems, including pipeline corrosion, failed valves and excavation damage by contractors.
"It's a lot of deaths, which concerns me. But they are a big company, too. The technology is to a point where you ought to be able to prevent all of these deaths," said Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, a nonprofit that monitors pipeline safety.
PG&E officials left key questions unanswered Friday about Thursday's explosion of a 30-inch, steel transmission pipe, including how company crews responded to earlier reports of a gas leak and when the 54-year-old pipeline was last inspected.
Separate from its accident record, the company also ran afoul of state regulators two years ago for its training.
In May 2008, the California Public Utilities Commission, which oversees natural gas pipelines, found in an audit that PG&E had not properly trained its field representatives on the use of gas-detection equipment and grading leaks outdoors.
And this May, a consumer group disclosed internal PG&E documents that revealed shortcomings in the way the company inspected its gas-distribution lines from 2004 to 2007.
"There's a history here that raises some pause and concern that this could be an ongoing characteristic of their maintenance," Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, said Friday.
In addition to multiple petroleum product pipelines, there are the following PG&E gas transmission lines:

1. There is a PG&E pipeline that goes east out of the Chevron refinery along Gertrude Avenue to Cherry Street.
2. There is a PG&E pipeline that runs along Chesley Street between Filbert and the UP railroad tracks.
3. There is a PG&E pipeline that runs along Potrero Avenue between 23rd Street and S. 11th Street, thence north along 11th Street to Cutting Boulevard, then west along Cutting to Harbour Way South, thence west along Virginia to S. 8th Street, thence north along S. 8th Street to Barrett Avenue, thence east along Barrett to 9th Street, thence north on 9th Street to Lincoln Avenue, thence west along Lincoln to 7th Street, thence north on 7th Street to Filbert Street and north along Filbert to Market Avenue, thence east along Market to 13th Street/Rumrill, thence north along Rumrill.
4. There is a PG&E line that runs along Giant Road south to San Pablo Creek, thence easterly along the creek

PG&E pipeline safety record called into question following San Bruno explosion

By Paul Rogers and Steve Johnson

Mercury News
Posted: 09/10/2010 06:59:58 PM PDT

The explosion that devastated a San Bruno neighborhood captured the nation's attention, but it is hardly the first tragedy involving a Pacific Gas & Electric natural gas pipeline
Between 1986 and last month, PG&E had 132 "significant incidents" with its natural gas transmission and distribution pipelines, according to records from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
Those incidents resulted in 18 fatalities, 64 injuries and $41 million in property damage. They were caused by a variety of problems, including pipeline corrosion, failed valves and excavation damage by contractors.
"It's a lot of deaths, which concerns me. But they are a big company, too. The technology is to a point where you ought to be able to prevent all of these deaths," said Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, a nonprofit that monitors pipeline safety.
PG&E officials left key questions unanswered Friday about Thursday's explosion of a 30-inch, steel transmission pipe, including how company crews responded to earlier reports of a gas leak and when the 54-year-old pipeline was last inspected.
Separate from its accident record, the company also ran afoul of state regulators two years ago for its training.
In May 2008, the California Public Utilities Commission, which oversees natural gas pipelines, found in an audit that PG&E had not properly trained its field representatives on the use of gas-detection equipment and grading leaks outdoors.
And this May, a consumer group disclosed internal PG&E documents that revealed shortcomings in the way the company inspected its gas-distribution lines from 2004 to 2007.
"There's a history here that raises some pause and concern that this could be an ongoing characteristic of their maintenance," Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, said Friday.
"Where else in the state do we have conditions existing that are similar to San Bruno?" he asked. "Is this the first of many tragedies?"
The company operates 48,580 miles of natural gas pipelines. Many are close to earthquake fault lines and pass under neighborhoods where residents may have no idea of the pipes' existence.
Thursday's explosion is believed to be the worst pipeline accident in PG&E history. The most recent pipeline death attributed to PG&E errors occurred less than two years ago.
In December 2008, Wilbert Paana, 72, was killed in Rancho Cordova, near Sacramento, in an explosion sparked by a natural gas leak at his house. The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates pipeline accidents, concluded that the leak was the result of an inadequate piece of polyethylene
pipe that PG&E crews installed in 2006, and that it took PG&E 2 hours and 47 minutes to send a properly trained crew to the house when neighbors reported strong smells of gas. The first PG&E technician on the scene did not call the fire department or place warning tape around the home, the NTSB found.
Concerns also grew Friday about what work PG&E crews might have done in the San Bruno neighborhood after residents reported smelling gas several weeks ago.
"PG&E came out," San Bruno resident Tim Gutierrez told KRON-TV on Thursday. "I was working in my garage and they told me to shut the door, shut the garage, go inside, that there was really heavy, strong gases. After being in the neighborhood for a little bit, they packed up and left."
State Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, announced that his public safety committee will hold hearings about the explosion.
In a statement Friday, PG&E said, "If it is ultimately determined that we were responsible for the cause of the incident, we will take accountability."
Added PG&E President Chris Johns in a separate statement: "On behalf of our 20,000 men and women, our thoughts and prayers go out to those who have been affected by yesterday's terrible tragedy."
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, PG&E reported it has $992 million in fire insurance. The company's stock fell $4.03, or 8 percent, to close at $44.21.
Among the questions PG&E left unanswered Friday:
  How many calls it received from neighbors reporting a potential gas leak before the explosion.
  What repair work, if any, its crews performed before the explosion, and when.
  When the pipeline, which was built in 1956, was most recently inspected.
Federal law requires natural gas transmission pipelines to be inspected at least once every seven years. Crews use equipment that can detect cracks, leaks and other flaws inside pipes.
"Our lives are literally in PG&E's hands, and that's scary," said Mark Toney, executive director of the consumer group The Utility Reform Network.
"The previous explosion in Rancho Cordova should have been a wake-up call not only to PG&E but also to the California Public Utilities Commission," Toney said. "If customers can't depend on PG&E to respond quickly and effectively to potential safety problems, it falls on the CPUC to step up."
In legal papers submitted to the PUC in May, Toney's group criticized PG&E, saying it has conducted shoddy checks for possible gas leaks in recent years.
The group cited internal PG&E documents that found "a significant number of employees" conducting routine checks for leaks in distribution lines from 2004 through 2007 had been improperly trained and that some records associated with the checks had been falsified, although the PG&E documents didn't elaborate.
As a result of the problems, PG&E made a number of changes in how it does such inspections and has been rechecking the lines at a cost of $103 million, according to TURN.
Julie Halligan, deputy director of the PUC's consumer protection and safety division, which is investigating the San Bruno disaster, said she was aware of PG&E's past leak-checking problems and that her agency had recommended the utility make improvements.
But she said she wasn't sure how well and how often PG&E had monitored its transmission pipelines, adding that her division had not yet obtained the company's inspection records.
Mercury News research director Leigh Poitinger contributed to this report. Contact Paul Rogers at 408-920-5045.
2002 legislation meant to make pipelines safer
Eric Nalder, Hearst Newspapers
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Pipeline safety was to get a major boost eight years ago when President George W. Bush signed a law toughening inspection standards, increasing fines for accidents and improving cooperation among state and federal oversight agencies.
Thursday's devastating explosion in a major high-pressure natural gas pipeline running 46 miles from Santa Clara County to San Francisco is just one of several recent warning shots raising doubts about pipeline safety nearly a decade later. In June, two blasts a day apart killed three people in Texas.
The Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002 - inspired by killer explosions in a gas pipeline in New Mexico and a gasoline pipeline in Washington State - called for mandatory "baseline" inspections for leaks in all natural gas pipelines nationwide within 10 years of the act. Riskier pipelines were to get those thorough exams within five years.
A decade later, federal and state oversight still relies on staffs that are stretched thin. There are fewer than a hundred federal inspectors and around 300 state inspectors nationwide, according to the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. California has only nine inspectors responsible for natural gas and propane pipelines.
Taking into account 2.5 million miles of pipeline nationwide - including all types - that makes the inspectors responsible for at least 6,000 miles of line each, even more in California.
California Public Utilities Commission attorney Patrick Berdge said he was unsure on Friday whether the Milpitas to San Francisco line had undergone its 10-year baseline assessment inspection, or whether it fell into the riskier category that got one within five years.
Gas company inspectors are the first line of defense. They are supposed to regularly inspect the lines, sometimes using computerized instruments that gather data while traveling down the pipe. Computer monitoring of pipelines also gives real-time warnings of pressure drops, indicating leaks.
California's nine state inspectors audit the paperwork produced by the private inspectors and conduct random physical inspections themselves, said Mike Robertson, a supervisor in the CPUC's utility safety and reliability branch.
"I think it's sufficient," he said.
Pipeline oversight was considered markedly deficient a decade ago when two deadly explosions helped inspire the passage of the new federal legislation.
The first blast, in Bellingham, Wash., in June 1999, erupted after nearly 300,000 gallons of gasoline spilled into a creek from a major north-south gasoline pipeline serving much of Western Washington. Two 10-year-old boys who had been playing with a lighter died from burns the next day, and an 18-year-old who had been fishing was killed instantly.
The second accident, in August 2000, wiped out an extended family of 12 that was camping under a major natural gas transmission line, owned by El Paso Natural Gas, near Carlsbad, N.M.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/11/MNF71FC7UV.DTL
This article appeared on page A - 11 of the San Francisco Chronicle