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Saturday, July 30, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Ex-PG&E manager says key records possibly trashed
Ex-PG&E manager says key records possibly trashed
Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer
July 22, 2011
A former Pacific Gas and Electric Co. record-keeping manager told federal investigators that a top PG&E official recently acknowledged to him that the utility had likely tossed some of its missing pipeline records, according to a transcript of his interview released Thursday.
"If they couldn't identify what it was, it probably just got s- canned," the pipeline engineering official reportedly told the manager-turned-whistle-blower, Larry Medina, during a June 27 interview regarding last year's catastrophic natural gas pipeline blast in San Bruno.
He said the comment was made as he talked to the PG&E official late last year about what might have happened to pipeline records that had previously long been kept on the 10th floor of a company office on Mission Street in San Francisco.
Any records that were not discarded ended up at the company's office in Walnut Creek, Medina said he was told.
PG&E did not comment on any of the documents or interview transcripts released Thursday, but instead issued a general statement recounting its efforts to assure safety in the wake of the Sept. 9 blast in San Bruno, which killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes.
Medina has become an important figure in the government investigation because PG&E has yet to find key documents related to the San Bruno line, including copies of drawings showing how the line was rerouted at the blast site in 1956.
Key documents missing
Medina, who left PG&E in 1993 and is now a records management official at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, warned the company at the time he left, in a memo, that its flawed record-keeping methods "may be costly to PG&E in the future."
He said officials seemed to realize the importance of the two memos, which he recently turned over to U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough. She passed them along to officials of the National Transportation Safety Board, which released them Thursday.
That agency's investigators are focusing on PG&E's flawed record-keeping, which is also the target of a state investigation, as they seek to find the root cause of the San Bruno blast.
Federal investigators have discovered that the pipe in San Bruno failed at an incomplete seam weld that PG&E didn't realize was in the line, because its computerized records said the pipe was seamless. The company never conducted an inspection that might have detected the problem weld.
Before he disclosed the memos, Medina recalled that his "blood boiled" when he heard that the utility could not find many documents related to its gas transmission system and the San Bruno line that ruptured. Medina said he had been paid for 10 years to manage the records of the line.
So he set about trying to tell PG&E officials about where the records might be found. He told investigators that the company had long kept three sets of documents about each of its lines and had stored microfilmed copies of key drawings and other documents in a vault in Kern County.
Medina said he twice left messages with Kirk Johnson, PG&E's vice president of gas operations, about the records issue in October and November. He said he did not hear back, and so finally tracked down and talked to Luano Nomellini, a pipeline engineering group director, in December.
Possibly discarded
Medina said he asked whether anyone had looked for the missing records in a storage area on the 10th floor of a PG&E building on Mission Street.
"So what happened to the stuff?" Medina said he asked. Nomellini, he said, explained that records were sent to PG&E's Walnut Creek office, but that if they were unmarked or unidentifiable, they were likely discarded.
Nomellini said he would "try to talk to some people, see what he could find out about what happened to the stuff ... and he might get back to me," Medina recounted. The PG&E official never did and Medina eventually contacted Speier.
Medina later told the safety board that, while at PG&E, he had to constantly remind officials about the need to keep the right records in order to comply with state and federal safety rules.
"So every time they wanted to cut our budget," he said, "I would press the play button on the side of my neck and state (the law) to remind people we had an obligation to maintain drawings of all facilities that were in operation that accurately depicted the condition."
Medina said he came forward only to help authorities find any missing records.
"I have no intent to harm PG&E in any way," Medina said, describing himself as a "third generation" employee as well as a stockholder, ratepayer and future pensioner. Given what he called his "entwined relationship" with the company, he stressed that his only goal was "to see this come to a resolution."
"I feel very sorry for the people who were harmed when this incident occurred and any others that may be harmed from the lack of information being available," he said. "But I know this information did exist and I have a feeling that it may still exist."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/21/MNUQ1KDIQ6.DTL&feed=rss.pageone
Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer
July 22, 2011
A former Pacific Gas and Electric Co. record-keeping manager told federal investigators that a top PG&E official recently acknowledged to him that the utility had likely tossed some of its missing pipeline records, according to a transcript of his interview released Thursday.
"If they couldn't identify what it was, it probably just got s- canned," the pipeline engineering official reportedly told the manager-turned-whistle-blower, Larry Medina, during a June 27 interview regarding last year's catastrophic natural gas pipeline blast in San Bruno.
He said the comment was made as he talked to the PG&E official late last year about what might have happened to pipeline records that had previously long been kept on the 10th floor of a company office on Mission Street in San Francisco.
Any records that were not discarded ended up at the company's office in Walnut Creek, Medina said he was told.
PG&E did not comment on any of the documents or interview transcripts released Thursday, but instead issued a general statement recounting its efforts to assure safety in the wake of the Sept. 9 blast in San Bruno, which killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes.
Medina has become an important figure in the government investigation because PG&E has yet to find key documents related to the San Bruno line, including copies of drawings showing how the line was rerouted at the blast site in 1956.
Key documents missing
Medina, who left PG&E in 1993 and is now a records management official at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, warned the company at the time he left, in a memo, that its flawed record-keeping methods "may be costly to PG&E in the future."
He said officials seemed to realize the importance of the two memos, which he recently turned over to U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough. She passed them along to officials of the National Transportation Safety Board, which released them Thursday.
That agency's investigators are focusing on PG&E's flawed record-keeping, which is also the target of a state investigation, as they seek to find the root cause of the San Bruno blast.
Federal investigators have discovered that the pipe in San Bruno failed at an incomplete seam weld that PG&E didn't realize was in the line, because its computerized records said the pipe was seamless. The company never conducted an inspection that might have detected the problem weld.
Before he disclosed the memos, Medina recalled that his "blood boiled" when he heard that the utility could not find many documents related to its gas transmission system and the San Bruno line that ruptured. Medina said he had been paid for 10 years to manage the records of the line.
So he set about trying to tell PG&E officials about where the records might be found. He told investigators that the company had long kept three sets of documents about each of its lines and had stored microfilmed copies of key drawings and other documents in a vault in Kern County.
Medina said he twice left messages with Kirk Johnson, PG&E's vice president of gas operations, about the records issue in October and November. He said he did not hear back, and so finally tracked down and talked to Luano Nomellini, a pipeline engineering group director, in December.
Possibly discarded
Medina said he asked whether anyone had looked for the missing records in a storage area on the 10th floor of a PG&E building on Mission Street.
"So what happened to the stuff?" Medina said he asked. Nomellini, he said, explained that records were sent to PG&E's Walnut Creek office, but that if they were unmarked or unidentifiable, they were likely discarded.
Nomellini said he would "try to talk to some people, see what he could find out about what happened to the stuff ... and he might get back to me," Medina recounted. The PG&E official never did and Medina eventually contacted Speier.
Medina later told the safety board that, while at PG&E, he had to constantly remind officials about the need to keep the right records in order to comply with state and federal safety rules.
"So every time they wanted to cut our budget," he said, "I would press the play button on the side of my neck and state (the law) to remind people we had an obligation to maintain drawings of all facilities that were in operation that accurately depicted the condition."
Medina said he came forward only to help authorities find any missing records.
"I have no intent to harm PG&E in any way," Medina said, describing himself as a "third generation" employee as well as a stockholder, ratepayer and future pensioner. Given what he called his "entwined relationship" with the company, he stressed that his only goal was "to see this come to a resolution."
"I feel very sorry for the people who were harmed when this incident occurred and any others that may be harmed from the lack of information being available," he said. "But I know this information did exist and I have a feeling that it may still exist."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/21/MNUQ1KDIQ6.DTL&feed=rss.pageone
Who's Watching PG&E?
CPUC acts more like lapdog than watchdog of PG&E
By Dennis Wyatt dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com - 209-249-3519
Want some reading that will curl your hair?
Just pick up a copy of the 194-page June 24, 2011 report of the independent review panel’s examination of the San Bruno explosion where a PG&E natural gas pipeline killed eight people and leveled a neighborhood. The report was prepared at the request of the California Public Utilities Commission that comes off more of a PG&E lapdog than a PG&E watchdog.
It is stuff that PG&E and the CPUC is hoping never gets wide distribution. They may get their wish given television’s inability to get beyond sound bites and needing visuals and the short attention span of many in the printed media.
The following bulletin points are taken verbatim from the report:
•1 “The NTSB’s findings to date identified both the material and the fabrication welds of the section of pipeline that failed did not meet either 1) the engineering consensus standards applicable to natural gas pipelines at the time or 2) the PG&E specifications in effect at the time of construction.”
•2 “The panel was mindful of the external criticism that has been leveled at PG&E. While it was acknowledged the company has many talented professionals, the CPUC admitted it was less effective in dealing with PG&E than any other utilities because of the ‘culture’ of PG&E.”
•3 “Management’s focus in recent times appears to have been focused on the occupational safety of its employees and lacking an equivalent focus on the public safety aspects of its system.”
•4 “PG&E provided erroneous data because of a lack of 1) robust data and document information management systems to archive historical data and 2) processes to capture emerging information about the underground gas transmission line.”
•5 “But the goals (PG&E) sets for management compensation purposes, its investments, and its practices do not suggest its focus is on achieving an industry leading pipeline safety and integrity program.”
6. “PG&E’s internal audit of its processes in 2010 identified in the field personnel were not adhering to the inspection policy during third-party construction, but no training was undertaken to remediate the nonconformance. Further, the company lacks a clear, disciplined communication process between field and general office engineering and between gas transmission engineers and integrity management personnel.
•7 “To fail to inspect during major adjacent earth disturbance and then to analyze the effect of that earth disturbance after-the-fact are examples of the operator pushing its luck.”
•8 “PG&E has no overall strategy to improve how it assesses the integrity of its system.”
•9 “In reviewing the pipeline 2020 program, we did not find it to be well-reasoned or based on a thoughtful examination of alternative. The plan appears to be reactive.”
•10 “PG&E’s management acknowledged to the panel that the implementation of field force automation is not as advanced as what other companies in the industry have available.”
•11 “In early 2007, (PG&E’s) Enterprise Risk Management program identified gas and electric system safety as one of the top 10 catastrophic risks facing PG&E. … PG&E defined a major natural gas transmission accident as one that had any of the following consequences: financial exposure from $100 million to $500 million; significant injury, illness or environmental impact; and/or national or international attention resulting in a severe negative consequence to the company’s image or reputation with regulators, consumers, or the general public.”
•12 “We would cite the following five factors as contributing to a dysfunctional culture…. excessive levels of management… inconsistent presence of subject matter expertise in management ranks… appearance-led strategy setting…. insularity … (and) overemphasis on financial performance.”
In a nutshell the CPUC essentially lets PG&E do as it pleases due to the for-profit’s ‘culture’ by apparently holding San Francsico-based utility to a lower standard than anyone else.
As for PG&E, image seems more important than safety. They also cry poor when it comes to spending money on pipeline safety yet they dumped:
•$46 million into the Proposition 16 campaign in a failed attempt to get voters to amend the California constitution to provide PG&E with a guaranteed monopoly.
•$35 million to sweeten departed chief executive officer Peter Darbee’s severance package.
•$12 million to buy a new corporate jet.
•more than $10 million into bonuses paid to top executives as a reward for steering them to the edge of bankruptcy.
That’s $103 million in just four instances that could have gone into improving pipeline safety.
And that is on top of a $35 million fine for state-imposed building and collection violations, $26 million in fines for a 2009 Christmas Eve natural gas pipeline explosion that killed a customer in Rancho Cordova and millions more in fines for wild land fires started due to failing to maintain power line right-of-ways.
It is clear PG&E refuses to put the public’s interest first and that the CPUC is inept at making sure PG&E doesn’t get reckless with its drive to put profit above public safety.
The time has come to pull the plug on the CPUC and/or PG&E and start all over.
http://www.mantecabulletin.com/section/38/article/25803/
By Dennis Wyatt dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com - 209-249-3519
Want some reading that will curl your hair?
Just pick up a copy of the 194-page June 24, 2011 report of the independent review panel’s examination of the San Bruno explosion where a PG&E natural gas pipeline killed eight people and leveled a neighborhood. The report was prepared at the request of the California Public Utilities Commission that comes off more of a PG&E lapdog than a PG&E watchdog.
It is stuff that PG&E and the CPUC is hoping never gets wide distribution. They may get their wish given television’s inability to get beyond sound bites and needing visuals and the short attention span of many in the printed media.
The following bulletin points are taken verbatim from the report:
•1 “The NTSB’s findings to date identified both the material and the fabrication welds of the section of pipeline that failed did not meet either 1) the engineering consensus standards applicable to natural gas pipelines at the time or 2) the PG&E specifications in effect at the time of construction.”
•2 “The panel was mindful of the external criticism that has been leveled at PG&E. While it was acknowledged the company has many talented professionals, the CPUC admitted it was less effective in dealing with PG&E than any other utilities because of the ‘culture’ of PG&E.”
•3 “Management’s focus in recent times appears to have been focused on the occupational safety of its employees and lacking an equivalent focus on the public safety aspects of its system.”
•4 “PG&E provided erroneous data because of a lack of 1) robust data and document information management systems to archive historical data and 2) processes to capture emerging information about the underground gas transmission line.”
•5 “But the goals (PG&E) sets for management compensation purposes, its investments, and its practices do not suggest its focus is on achieving an industry leading pipeline safety and integrity program.”
6. “PG&E’s internal audit of its processes in 2010 identified in the field personnel were not adhering to the inspection policy during third-party construction, but no training was undertaken to remediate the nonconformance. Further, the company lacks a clear, disciplined communication process between field and general office engineering and between gas transmission engineers and integrity management personnel.
•7 “To fail to inspect during major adjacent earth disturbance and then to analyze the effect of that earth disturbance after-the-fact are examples of the operator pushing its luck.”
•8 “PG&E has no overall strategy to improve how it assesses the integrity of its system.”
•9 “In reviewing the pipeline 2020 program, we did not find it to be well-reasoned or based on a thoughtful examination of alternative. The plan appears to be reactive.”
•10 “PG&E’s management acknowledged to the panel that the implementation of field force automation is not as advanced as what other companies in the industry have available.”
•11 “In early 2007, (PG&E’s) Enterprise Risk Management program identified gas and electric system safety as one of the top 10 catastrophic risks facing PG&E. … PG&E defined a major natural gas transmission accident as one that had any of the following consequences: financial exposure from $100 million to $500 million; significant injury, illness or environmental impact; and/or national or international attention resulting in a severe negative consequence to the company’s image or reputation with regulators, consumers, or the general public.”
•12 “We would cite the following five factors as contributing to a dysfunctional culture…. excessive levels of management… inconsistent presence of subject matter expertise in management ranks… appearance-led strategy setting…. insularity … (and) overemphasis on financial performance.”
In a nutshell the CPUC essentially lets PG&E do as it pleases due to the for-profit’s ‘culture’ by apparently holding San Francsico-based utility to a lower standard than anyone else.
As for PG&E, image seems more important than safety. They also cry poor when it comes to spending money on pipeline safety yet they dumped:
•$46 million into the Proposition 16 campaign in a failed attempt to get voters to amend the California constitution to provide PG&E with a guaranteed monopoly.
•$35 million to sweeten departed chief executive officer Peter Darbee’s severance package.
•$12 million to buy a new corporate jet.
•more than $10 million into bonuses paid to top executives as a reward for steering them to the edge of bankruptcy.
That’s $103 million in just four instances that could have gone into improving pipeline safety.
And that is on top of a $35 million fine for state-imposed building and collection violations, $26 million in fines for a 2009 Christmas Eve natural gas pipeline explosion that killed a customer in Rancho Cordova and millions more in fines for wild land fires started due to failing to maintain power line right-of-ways.
It is clear PG&E refuses to put the public’s interest first and that the CPUC is inept at making sure PG&E doesn’t get reckless with its drive to put profit above public safety.
The time has come to pull the plug on the CPUC and/or PG&E and start all over.
http://www.mantecabulletin.com/section/38/article/25803/
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Short Video (40 seconds) About The Importance Of Attending CPUC Public Participation Hearings
Short video to watch, shares information about the CPUC public participation hearings to take public comments about the PGE General Rate Case. Please watch and forward to those who might be interested in attending.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
PGE Unplugged Week 7 Newsletter
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PGE Unplugged Week 6 Newsletter
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