PG&E seeks to restore pipeline safety documents, reputation

By Mike Taugher

Contra Costa Times

Posted:   05/10/2012 06:16:00 AM PDT

Updated:   05/10/2012 08:17:08 AM PDT

As investigators poured into San Bruno in the immediate aftermath of the September 2010 pipeline explosion that killed eight people, PG&E gave them a piece of astonishingly inaccurate information.

Although the pipe's failure would eventually be traced to faulty welds, including one along a lengthwise seam on the pipe, PG&E's database showed the pipe to be seamless.

But the bad data was only the "tip of the iceberg" in a woefully inadequate record keeping system, a safety consultant later concluded. The company knew so little about the thousands of miles of large-diameter, high-pressure gas lines in Northern California that it could not possibly maintain them safely, said the consultant.

Since PG&E's sloppy record-keeping came to light, hundreds of technicians and engineers have spent thousands of hours poring through millions of individual documents in an unprecedented effort to build a detailed view of PG&E's vast gas transmission system -- and to repair the utility's tattered reputation.

To read the entire article go to: http://www.mercurynews.com/pge/ci_20583937/pg-e-seeks-restore-pipeline-safety-documents-reputation?source=rss

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