Thread: Gas Blasts Spur Questions on Oversight of 2.7M miles of pipe

Gas Blasts Spur Questions on Oversight

By ANDREW W. LEHREN
Published: September 24, 2010

At a Christmas Eve gathering in 2008, a natural gas explosion in a suburban Sacramento neighborhood killed a 72-year-old man and injured his daughter and granddaughter. Investigators determined that Pacific Gas and Electric was to blame for a leak, but federal and state regulators never cited the utility for safety violations.

SAN BRUNO, CALIF., SEPT. 9, 2010 Fire investigators searched houses in the Crestmont neighborhood after a high-pressure natural gas line exploded, killing seven people and injuring more than 50. Investigators have not determined the cause.

Ronald W. Erdrich/Abilene Reporter-News, via Associated Press

ABILENE, TEX., SEPT. 7, 2000 Firefighters soaked the ground at the site of a pipeline explosion in an effort to keep the flames from spreading to the tinder-dry countryside. An off-duty police officer was killed and two people were injured.

It was one example of what many experts and studies say is weak oversight of gas pipelines in the United States, a problem that has contributed to hundreds of pipeline episodes that have killed 60 people and injured 230 others in the last five years. Those figures do not include the final toll of the explosion of another Pacific Gas and Electric pipeline this month in San Bruno, Calif., that left seven people dead and more than 50 injured.

Though the cause of that explosion was still under investigation, it was the latest event to raise concerns among safety experts. Several independent government reviews, going back several years, have found systemic problems with the way the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the federal agency in charge of pipeline oversight, enforces safety rules.

In 2004, for example, the General Accounting Office documented how pipeline safety enforcement “needs further strengthening.â€

I'm betting a government takeover of utilities is in the offing.