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Pacific Gas and Electric says it is setting aside up to $100 million to assist residents after the gas line explosion in San Bruno, Calif.
After pipeline blast, widespread concern
Suburban sprawl increases risk from aging infrastructure
BY GARANCE BURKE AND JASON DEAREN
san bruno, calif. — An omi- nous themehas emergedfromthe wreckage of a deadly pipeline ex- plosion in California: There are thousands of pipes just like it na- tionwide. Utilities have been under pres-
sure for years to do a better job of inspecting and replacing aging gas pipes.Many of themwere laid years before the suburbs expand- edover themandnowareat riskof leaking or erupting. But the effort has fallen short.
Critics saytheregulatorysystemis ripe forproblemsbecause thegov- ernment leaves ituptocompanies to do inspections and utilities are reluctant to spendthemoneynec- essary to fix and replace pipelines properly. “If this was the [Federal Avia-
tionAdministration] and air trav- el we were talking about, I wouldn’t get onaplane,” saidRick Kessler, who specialized in pipe- line safety issues as a congressio- nal staff member and now works for the Pipeline Safety Trust, an advocacy group based in Belling- ham,Wash. Investigators are trying to fig-
ure out how a pipeline ruptured this month in San Bruno, and ignited a gigantic fireball that torched one home after another, killing at least four people. Pacific Gas and Electric, the pipeline’s owner, saidit is setting asideupto $100million to help residents re- cover. Experts say the California di-
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saster epitomizes the risks that communities face with old gas lines. The pipe was more than 50 years old, right around the life expectancy for steel pipes. It was part of a transmission line that hadan“unacceptablyhigh” riskof failure. And it was in a densely populated area. The blast was the latest in a
series of deadly infrastructure failures in recent years, including a bridge collapse in Minneapolis and a steam pipe explosion that tore open a Manhattan street in 2007. The steam pipe that rup- turedwasmore than 80 years old. The section of pipeline that
ruptured in San Bruno was built in 1956, when the neighborhood had a handful of homes. Christo- pher Hart , vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said the expansion of the suburbs created a safety problem that exists elsewhere across the nation. “That’s an issue we’re going to
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have to look on a bigger scale, situations in which pipes of some age were put in before the dense population arrived and now the dense population is right over the pipe,” he said. Thousands of pipelines nation-
wide fit the bill, and serious inci- dents are not infrequent. Federal officials have recorded 2,840 sig- nificant gas pipeline accidents since 1990, more than a third causing deaths and significant in- juries. “Inreality, thereisamajorpipe-
line incident every other day in this country,” said Carl Weimer, Pipeline Safety Trust’s executive director. “Luckily, most of them don’t happen in populated areas, but you still see toomany failures tothinksomethinglikethiswasn’t going to happen sooner or later.”
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that required utilities for the first time to inspect pipelines that run through heavily populated areas. In the first five years, more than 3,000 problemswere identified, a figure Weimer said underscores the precariousness of the pipeline system. Wheninspections aredone and
problems found, Kessler said, companies are not required to say whether or what kind of repairs weremade.Weimer said industry
lobbyists have pushed to relax the inspection provision so regular inspections could occur once a decade or once every 15 years in- stead of on a seven-year cycle. Other critics complain that the
pipeline plans are drafted in se- cretwith little opportunity for the public to speak out. The Pipeline and Hazardous
Materials Safety Administration is the federal agency that enforces rules for the safe operation of the nation’s pipeline system. State publicutility agencieshave adopt- ed the federal rules and carry out inspections and enforcement. But the system often relies on
pipeline operators such as Pacific Gas and Electric to survey their gas linesandtodecidewhichpipe- lines are high-risk. The American Gas Association
disputes the ideathat the industry cuts corners and says the industry is subjected to stringent state and federal regulations. “Safety isunequivocally theNo.
1priority for thenatural gas trans- missionand distributionindustry and always will be,” spokesman Chris Hogan said. “The industry spends billions each year to en- sure the safety and reliability of the natural gas infrastructure. The challenge of making pipe-
lines safe is compounded by the size of the nation’s natural gas network. The Pipeline and Haz- ardousMaterials Safety Adminis- tration says the United States has more than 2millionmiles of pipe- lines, enough to circle the Earth about 100 times. The federal agency has about
100 inspectors nationwide to en- force compliance, meaning there is no guarantee violators will be caught. “When you look at 21/2 millionmiles of pipelinewith 100 inspectors, it’s not reassuring,” Weimer said. “To a grand degree, the industry inspects and polices themselves.” Safety threats have grown as
the pipeline network has expand- ed and as age has taken its toll on the infrastructure. More than 60 percent of the nation’s gas trans- mission lines are 40 years old or older. Most of themaremade of steel,
and older varieties are prone to corrosion. More problematic are pipes made of cast iron. A few places in Pennsylvania still had wooden gas pipes as of last year, officials there said. Pipelines in heavily populated
locations such as San Bruno fall into a category the industry refers to as “high-consequence areas.” Those areas contain about 7
percent of the 300,000 miles of gas transmission lines in the country, or about 21,000 miles of pipeline.
Industrywatchdogs Industry watchdogs have criti-
cizedutilities fornotbeingwilling to spend the money necessary to avoid explosions such as the one inCalifornia.Thecostof replacing lengthy stretches of pipelines can exceed $30million. “Theywillprioritize andput off
work to maintain their level of earnings,” said BillMarcus, a law- yer whose firm consults on gas rate cases with consumer protec- tion agencies and nonprofit groups across the nation. “To someextent that’snotbad,but it is concerning when those decisions endanger public health or the en- vironment.” PG&E said that it has spent
more than $100 million to im- prove its gas system in recent years and that it routinely surveys its5,724milesof transmissionand 42,142 miles of distribution lines for leaks. The utility said it speed- ed up surveys of distribution lines in 2008 and should have checks done byDecember. The risk created by population
growth over the pipeline is part of a national problem, experts say. “People have beenwaiting for a
while for this type of disaster to happen because of expanded con- struction near pipeline right of ways without adequate preven- tion,” said Paul Blackburn, a pub- lic interest lawyer in Vermillion, S.D.
—Associated Press
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