PG&E to replace hundreds of emergency valves
Jaxon Van Derbeken, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle October 12, 2010 06:49 PM Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Tuesday, October 12, 2010
PG&E said it would first install the automatic shut-offs on the more than 1,000 miles of transmission lines in its system that run under cities, suburbs and other "high-consequence areas," where explosions could have especially deadly results.
Utility officials made the announcement a little more than a month after a 30-inch gas transmission line ruptured Sept. 9 in San Bruno's Crestmoor neighborhood, sparking an inferno that killed eight people. The upgrade is the centerpiece of a series of improvements that PG&E said it would make in its gas system by 2020.
The announcement came just days before the National Transportation Safety Board is expected to issue a preliminary report on the San Bruno explosion.
The report is not likely to come to conclusions about what caused the blast - the board will not issue those findings for several months. However, fire officials said the inferno could have been contained earlier, and some homes might have been saved, had PG&E been able to shut off the flow of gas to the line automatically.
<SNIP>View entire article here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/12/BA691FROMV.DTL&tsp=1
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