Bay Area Lawmakers Outline Pipeline Safety Bills as San Bruno Explosion Anniversary Nears

As the anniversary of the deadly pipeline explosion in San Bruno approaches on Sept. 9, four Bay Area lawmakers held a news conference in Sacramento Wednesday to highlight a package of legislation aimed at improving the safety of the state's natural gas transmission system.

Senate Majority Leader Ellen Corbett joined state Sens. Leland Yee and Mark Leno and Assemblyman Jerry Hill on the south steps of the state Capitol to outline the legislation. The three Bay Area senators and Assemblyman Hill, whose district includes San Bruno, have each introduced bills which are all expected to be passed by the senate and signed by Gov. Brown by the end of this week, Corbett's press secretary Andrew LaMar said.

Friday, Sept. 9, marks the one-year anniversary of the explosion of a PG&E gas transmission pipeline in San Bruno's Crestmoor Canyon neighborhood, which killed eight people, injured dozens more and destroyed 38 homes. Corbett (D-San Leandro), called the event the worst disaster in the history of the nation's natural gas industry and said that the legislature's response with stricter regulations for the state's utility companies came after a "thoughtful and deliberative review of what went wrong."

Corbett's legislation, Senate Bill 44, requires natural gas operators to provide maps of where pipelines are located to local fire departments. A year-long investigation into the San Bruno disaster by the National Transportation Safety Board found that local police and fire departments had no idea that a 30-inch gas transmission pipeline ran through the community.

Corbett said her bill raises first response standards for gas operators "so first responders can be as effective as possible."

Yee (D-San Francisco), introduced Senate Bill 216, which requires that automatic or remotely controlled shut-off valves be installed on pipelines that lie in seismically active or highly populated areas. Yee said that some of the devastation in San Bruno could have been avoided if automatic, rather than manual, shut-off valves were installed on Line 132 that ruptured and fed a natural gas fire that burned for 95 minutes.

"I was there, watching and seeing the hell that was created by that explosion," Yee said. "If automatic shut-off valves had been in place, the devastation would not have been as bad."

Hill's legislation, Assembly Bill 56, would require that gas companies submit plans for comprehensive testing of their transmission pipelines to state regulators. In the wake of the San Bruno explosion, NTSB investigators found that PG&E had only tested an estimated 56 percent of its 1,800 miles of gas transmission lines. Line 132 in San Bruno had not been pressure-tested since it was installed in 1956, Hill said Tuesday at a press conference in San Bruno.

Leno (D-San Francisco), said that the bill he wrote, Senate Bill 705, aims to safeguard the public by requiring gas providers to implement comprehensive safety programs without passing the cost of any new program to customers. SB 705 further seeks a "thorough-going change in the culture" of the natural gas industry by requiring utilities to prioritize safety in its operation and maintenance procedures.

"The culture of putting profits over public safety must come to an end," Leno said.

- Bay City News Service