Posts Tagged: gas pipeline

Coverup by Pacific Gas & Electric in San Bruno explosion?

By Marc Albert | Jul 22 2011 at 18:20 | Your take

A whistleblower told federal investigators last month that utility officials likely threw out what may prove crucial records as the National Transportation Safety Board continues its inquest into a deadly explosion of a natural gas pipeline near San Francisco, Jaxon Van Derbeken of the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The explosion killed eight people in October and turned 38 suburban homes into charred cinders. (more…)

Topics: Beltway Outsider, Departmentalized – Federal Agencies, Independent Federal Agencies, Infrastructure and Mass Transit, National Transportation Safety Board
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San Bruno, CA pipeline blast: Where there’s no inspector, there’s fire

By Marc Albert | Mar 08 2011 at 15:06 | Your take

San Bruno, CA explosion

A series of unrelated errors, some made over half a century ago, aligned in a cascading series of failures that caused the deadly explosion last September of a major natural gas transmission line near San Francisco, reports Eric Nadler of the San Francisco Chronicle.

The story is based on newly-released documents from a National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the catastrophe.

On Sept. 9 a Pacific Gas & Electric Co., natural gas transmission line, some 30 inches in diameter, buried beneath a San Bruno Calif., subdivision failed. The ensuing fireball and inferno killed eight people and consumed 38 homes.  Operators at a San Francisco control room saw pressure spiking in several pipelines (more…)

Topics: Beltway Outsider, Boards, Commissions, and Committees, Departmentalized – Federal Agencies, Dept. of Transportation, Featured Articles, Government in My Backyard (GIMBY), Infrastructure and Mass Transit, National Transportation Safety Board, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration
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In the pipeline: safety changes for underground gas lines

By Marc Albert | Mar 03 2011 at 13:54 | Your take

San Bruno aftermath

A wholesale revision of federal regulations related to utilities and their natural gas pipelines could emerge from the on-going investigation into the catastrophic transmission line rupture and massive explosion that killed eight and turned a quiet suburban subdivision outside of San Francisco into a smoldering crater. (more…)

Topics: Beltway Outsider, Dept. of Transportation, Infrastructure and Mass Transit, National Transportation Safety Board, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration
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