PG&E missing key documents about San Bruno (gas) line

[Newsjock]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. can't find key construction documents about the stretch of natural-gas pipeline that exploded last year in San Bruno and has long relied on faulty or nonexistent data to vouch for the safety of much of the rest of the Milpitas-to-San Francisco line, according to federal findings released Monday.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators probing the cause of the Sept. 9 blast have long been hampered by a lack of information about the cobbled-together section of substandard pipe pieces where the explosion occurred at a flawed weld, killing eight people and destroying 38 homes.

Although PG&E provided about 300 pages to the safety board related to a 1956 pipe rerouting project near the rupture site, its "documentation does not include PG&E's specifications, purchase orders for new pipe, inspection records, foreman's log books, as-built drawings or (X-ray) radiography reports," the federal agency said in a report Monday.

... Without PG&E having produced basic records about the pipeline, it is unclear how the company chose a method in recent years to comply with federal law mandating that pipeline operators inspect older pipes. Operators are required to review pipeline histories before choosing a method.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/15/BA681KNN1D.DTL&tsp=1

[TxVietVet]

1. That's a big OOPS! there, PG&E. Way to f*cking go!

:woohoo:

:sarcasm:

Cutting corners anyway you can to make more profit. Rat bastards.

[Firebrand Gary]

2. C'mon now, of course they are.

[DCKit]

3. Shocking. nt

[kentauros]

4. NTSB should put out a call for all drafters and engineers that

worked with PG&E during that time or on that line. Because sometimes we keep drawings and files. Usually, it's only as examples of our work, but sometimes it's because we see something really stupid happening...

[Festivito]

5. Start adding up non-compliance fines with interest for all the years since 1956.

Aside from worthless stock certificates, perhaps we could bill the investors for dividends already received.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

6. Interesting clawback approach