Legislative forum on Crestmoor disaster heated

Here is a roundup of Tuesday night's legislative forum on the Crestmoor disaster.

The forum started off quite civil with state Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, making a few statements about why the forum was being held in the city as opposed to in Sacramento and Mayor Jim Ruane reiterating that the process to rebuild the Crestmoor neighborhood is going to be long. Ruane also said that while there is no guarantee what will become of the neighborhood, residents are now adamant about making sure pipeline regulations in the state are "both firm and uncompromising, both transparent and understandable."

In addition to Hill, state legislators Tom Ammiano, Steven Bradford, Fiona Ma and Paul Fong sat on the panel.

PG&E, CPUC have their say

Kirk Johnson, PG&E's vice president of gas transmission and distribution, and Paul Clanon, executive director of the California Public Utilities Commission, each explained to the legislators what the utility and the regulator had been doing respectively since the Sept. 9 explosion.

In addition to describing the safety measures PG&E implemented following the fire and how the utility works with the CPUC, Johnson said PG&E crews have been performing a number of integrity management assessments throughout the utility's pipeline system. Johnson said PG&E has inspected 737 miles of its 110,000 miles of pipeline, of which 156 miles have been inspected using "smart pigs," the robotic device that inspectors use to make more specific determinations on a pipeline's physical condition.

Clanon explained actions taken by the CPUC following the fire, including having an inspector on the scene immediately after the explosion and directing PG&E to lower the gas pressure in its lines.

Answering criticism of the CPUC for its alleged lenient relationship with PG&E, Clanon said he agreed that more could be done with the oversight of the state's utilities.

"Nobody can be complacent with the regulations we have in place now," Clanon said. "If we keep one thing in mind as we talk about these many issues tonight, it is that...we should have a better system at the federal level and, of course, at the state."

Legislators claim regulators lacking in oversight

Many have also questioned why the CPUC hadn't acted sooner on forcing PG&E to make repairs on a section of Line 132 in South San Francisco that was deemed "high-risk" in 2007. The utility was allowed to levy rate increases on customers to make $5 million in improvements on that segment of pipeline, but then used the money to make repairs on other pipelines that were given a higher priority at the time.

The legislators grilled Clanon about this move, but he said he didn't have a clear reason why it was allowed to happen.

Hill, who proposed a bill Monday to make utilities and regulators more accountable to ratepayers, said that lack of oversight is evidence that there are holes in the system that need to be fixed.

Ammiano said Clanon's response to questions about Line 132 were "a sidestep of true accountability." He castigated Clanon and the CPUC when Clanon suggested that levying significant fines against utilities in the state would discourage them from coming forth to the regulator's short staff of nine inspectors with pipeline problems.

"You have to have kids," Ammiano told Clanon. "You have to know there's more to oversight than, 'We're not going to fine them because they won't step forward.' That's Disney World."

Dave Ashuckian chimed in and said, contrary to common perceptions, that shareholders rather than ratepayers would be the ones paying for the penalties. However, Ashuckian said, utilities are careful with spending shareholder money and are "very reluctant to add to shareholders' fines."

Experts weigh in

Several experts were also asked to speak about pipeline safety. One expert, Rick Kuprewicz, president of risk management consulting firm Accufacts Inc., said the maintenance and regulation of the pipelines in question were deeply flawed.

Kuprewicz questioned PG&E's practices of direct assessments and aerial leak surveys. Aerial surveys, which are used more for newer pipes, aren't part of the pipeline maintenance requirements and direct assessments are only good at detecting corrosion but not other problems, he said.

Kuprewicz had several recommendations going forward, including:

• requiring utilities to turn away from using direct assessments to detect leaks in their pipes;
• using more smart pigs and a method called hydrotesting to survey pipeline systems;
• increasing the number of inspectors with the CPUC (the regulator has agreed to hire four more inspectors by next year);
• disconnecting pipeline safety inspections from the rate-making process; and
• making more, but not all, pipeline information available to the public.

Several people also asked the experts to make an educated guess about what they thought could have been the cause of the explosion. Surprisingly, they said, it appears the gas in Line 132 most likely ignited itself.

But Kuprewicz warned that it probably isn't that simple.

With pipeline explosions, he said, "it's never been a single event. It's always been a series of events and multiple breakdowns."