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John Upton print journalist 415 738 0721 john@john-upton.com Series of articles: Cosco Busan oil spill Power plant debate Radioactive air pollution Gas pipeline safety Other reporting: Feature interviews |
PG&E's bid to save money on natural gas pipeline safety John Upton reporting for the Tracy Press, California In December 2007, Tracy City Council voted to reverse its previous decision to build childrens' sports fields above the pipelines outlined in the following articles. Second guessing original / top Sept. 22, 2007 As Tracy activists fought a winning legal battle to force utility giant Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to replace a natural gas pipeline below children's sports fields, they subpoenaed documents that raise questions about the safety of a second high-pressure pipeline that runs through rural southwestern Tracy and below the planned fields. Subpoenaed e-mails show that a pair of 2-foot patches of "unacceptable corrosion" were found by computerized PG&E tests in 2001, where as much as three-quarters of the thickness of 26-inch-wide pipeline's wall had been eaten through. Those patches were 80 miles south of Tracy, according to company spokeswoman Nicole Tam. She said the patches were not repaired because a follow-up visual inspection "determined that the problem was localized and well within the tolerances provided in the pipeline safety standards." Tam said state regulators corroborated the result with a visual inspection, but there's no supporting paperwork, because none was legally required. The corroded sections of pipeline are due to be tested again next year using the same type of tests that Tam said were ignored in 2001 after they were judged through the visual inspection to have "overstated" the corrosion. Also of concern to the activists is a 2003 PG&E report that concluded the maximum pressure of natural gas in the second pipeline was greater than the pressure federal safety guidelines would normally allow below the sports fields. But the pipeline passed the risk assessment because it passed hydrological tests in 1972 - the same year the pipeline was laid. The tests flushed water down the pipeline to gauge its strength, according to Tam. "Pipelines that have successfully passed a hydro test," she said, "are allowed to operate at higher pressures than those not tested." Bob Curry, a retired professor of Environmental Geology and Hydrology at University of California, Santa Cruz, was hired by nonprofit Californians for Renewable Energy as an expert witness in the recent court battle about the 14-year-old, 36-inch pipeline PG&E agreed to replace. The nonprofit joined a complaint to the California Public Utilities Commission filed in March by Carole Dominguez, an accountant and mother of five who ran unsuccessfully for the Tracy City Council in 2006. Local activist and shoe store owner Bob Sarvey also joined the complaint. The nonprofit seeks $264,500 from PG&E, and Sarvey seeks $49,100 to cover the costs of work done in the case, case records show. Dominguez asked for no money. Curry said he met with PG&E employees and reviewed technical and confidential pipeline documents. "They demonstrated to the attorneys and I that they didn't have a very good handle on the safety of the older pipeline, which was one of the earliest pipelines put in in California," Curry said. "They were not as certain about the safety of the issues as they gave the impression of being when they talked to the public." Pits have been corroded into the surface of the 26-inch pipeline, according to both Curry and documents reviewed by the Tracy Press. "The pits are at the limit of acceptability," Curry said. "Both the older pipe and the newer pipe had problems, but the older pipe was much worse. When the pits themselves corrode to the depth that it can no longer hold the pressure of the natural gas in the pipe, then it explodes." A natural gas pipeline explosion that killed 12 New Mexican campers in 2000 was caused by corroded pits, according to Curry. The 35-year-old double-wrapped tape that protects the second pipeline against corrosion "doesn't last more than 10 to 15 years," Curry said. "It wouldn't be legal if put in today." The newer 36-inch pipeline, by contrast, is coated with a modern epoxy. Spokeswoman Tam said the tape is part of an outer protection system that's in "good working condition." Dominguez led the recent legal battle that overturned a waiver that had would have allowed PG&E to save an estimated $2.5 million by not replacing the 36-inch pipeline after it failed federal safety standards. Dominguez charged that PG&E lied when it applied for the waiver, and she says she distrusts assurances by Tam or other company representatives that the pipeline is safe. "I think a lot of the statements that they make are just PR," Dominguez said. "It's just the spin factory at work." Sarvey said they hope to find a way to force PG&E to replace or remove the second pipeline. "I'm still plotting and planning - I haven't really come up with a solution for it," Sarvey said. "I'm hoping the council blows (the sports park project) off and puts a solar farm out there. ... I know it's a long shot, but it's what I'm hoping." Sarvey said his biggest fear for the safety of the second pipeline is that farming and construction vehicles could have driven over it and weakened it during the past three decades. The tests conducted by PG&E on the pipelines are "effective at detecting pipeline corrosion," wrote senior PG&E engineer Chih Hung Lee for a Department of Transportation hearing in 1999, but "unreliable and less exact" at detecting other pipeline weaknesses. When Stockton-based W.C. Maloney was hired by the city to remove antennas from the sports fields earlier this year, the company laid inch-thick steel plates and four-foot high mounds over the ground to protect the pipelines before driving cranes, excavators and other heavy equipment over them, according to John Lynch of Wright Environmental Services, who was hired by the city to supervise the work. A Chevron crude oil line runs parallel to the gas pipelines. The pipes range from 1½- to 3-feet wide, and they're buried 2 feet below the ground. All three pipes also run below the site of the proposed Ellis subdivision, where city officials hope to build a resort-style aquatics center. The city expects children to play soccer, football, baseball and softball above the pipes by early 2009. PG&E is required under the recent settlement agreement to replace the 36-inch pipeline within two years. The safety of the 26-inch pipeline has not been legally challenged, in part because it is not believed to violate any safety laws. Truth or consequence original / top May 1, 2007 Pacific Gas & Electric Co. critics say the company lied to state regulators in an application that exempted it from spending $2.5 million to improve the safety of a high-pressure gas pipeline below children's sports fields due to be built this year in southwest Tracy. The wall of the 36-inch wide natural gas pipeline that runs 4 feet below the ground is too weak, and the internal pressure is too strong to run beneath the Schulte Road Sports Park, ruled a state utilities engineer in 2004 using safety guidelines published by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Office of Pipeline Safety. But five California Public Utilities Commissioners granted PG&E a safety waiver that exempted it from reducing pipeline pressure or replacing or reinforcing the pipeline in December 2004. PG&E representatives told commission employees that the pipeline was safe and that the company had informed "the potentially affected parties" of its safety waiver application and no one had appealed against it. Activist Carole Dominguez alleges the waiver was "fraudulently obtained" by PG&E, and has won a hearing before a San Francisco judge to fight the waiver. PG&E's attorneys in written testimony said the company notified the "potentially affected parties" of its waiver application during an April 2004 joint City Council and Parks Commission meeting, when the company explained its safety monitoring and education plan for the pipeline. Under the safety plan, the pipes will be inspected at least six times a year, signs will be installed that list a 24-hour emergency hotline telephone number and a PG&E representative will supervise sports field construction work. The word "waiver" did not appear in the meeting agenda, minutes or presentation materials, though the word "safety" appeared 13 times in a slide presentation by PG&E government affairs manager Emily Barnett. PG&E spokeswoman Nicole Tam said last week that the company needed only to inform city officials of the 2004 waiver application because the city is the only potentially affected party, since it is the developer and the landowner. The land was, in fact, owned by the U.S. Department of Justice until fall 2006, when it was purchased by the city using a law passed by Congress and written by then-Rep. Richard Pombo, whose relatives own nearby land. Dominguez said nearby landowners and parents of children who will play on the sports fields are also parties who are potentially affected by the waiver. Attorneys for PG&E in written testimony said the company had no legal obligation in 2004 to tell the commission about a number of complaints that were submitted through the commission's Web site and quoted in a newspaper article. The waiver was granted under a provision of the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act, which was co-sponsored by Pombo and passed the House, 423-4, in 2002. It was touted as a law that would protect energy supplies, and the government at the time estimated it would spare the energy industry $1 billion worth of safety-related work over the coming 20 years "with no reduction in pipeline safety." The California Public Utilities Commission did away with the normal public comment period when the safety waiver was awarded, and no one complained after PG&E filed its application. The only public notification of the waiver application was in an agenda published by the commission before its December 2004 meeting. PG&E officials have repeatedly told city officials the pipeline is safe. An environmental impact report prepared by consultants and city employees found the pipeline would create a "significant hazard," but the report concluded that the site is safe for sports fields. The city's Planning Commission previously rejected a 1999 San Joaquin Delta College application to build a campus there in part because of concern over the safety of the pipeline. Dominguez also alleges PG&E exaggerated costs to ratepayers of safety monitoring work and that PG&E broke a requirement of the safety waiver when it failed to monitor construction work at the Schulte Road Antenna Farm. According to PG&E's attorneys, the company does not consider the removal and excavation of oil drums, fuel tanks, antennas and guy-wires to be "construction of the sports facility," though it is described as construction work in city documents. PG&E in 2004 said it needed the waiver because of the high demand for its natural gas. The highly processed, nonrenewable fuel burns more cleanly and more efficiently than gasoline. Administrative Law Judge Myra Prestidge on Monday postponed a pre-hearing conference to discuss Dominguez's complaint until May 21 because she was ill. The commission's Consumer Protection and Safety Division unsuccessfully tried to pressure Dominguez to drop her appeal during a conference call after the formal hearing was postponed. Division attorney Edward Moldavsky told Dominguez he would like his division to solely lead an investigation into whether the pipeline is safe, but not into whether fraud occurred. "The evidence that I have is that (the pipeline) is safe," said Moldavsky, who during the conversation characterized Dominguez as a "lone ranger type." "You're hurting yourself by taking the gloves off. ... We're the police, and we're a little taken aback," he said. Moldavsky told Dominguez the appeal would waste taxpayer money and that Judge Prestidge is "very busy." Moldavsky told Dominguez he was first briefed on her appeal several weeks ago. He said he was not aware of all of Dominguez's complaints to the commission and that he was not aware of all the pipelines that run below the planned fields. A second natural gas pipeline was ruled safe by the engineer in 2004 using federal guidelines. A Chevron crude oil pipeline runs parallel to both gas pipelines. Attorney Michael Boyd of Californians for Renewable Energy, which submitted testimony for the hearing, told Moldavsky during the post-hearing conversation, "You can't have the police investigator investigating the police." According to a report by the U.S. National Transportation Board and testimony prepared for the postponed hearing by activist Bob Sarvey, a dozen people were killed when gas from a 30-inch underground gas pipeline exploded in August 2000 within 700 feet of their New Mexican campsite. Return to top |