PACIFIC GAS & ELECTRIC CO — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2017-01-08

Gas transmission and gathering incident in PITTSBURG, CONTRA COSTA County, CA. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 50 NATURAL GAS released, $293,406 reported property damage. Operator-reported incident data submitted to PHMSA, generally within 30 days. Records may be supplemented or corrected and do not represent final agency causal findings.

Report number: 20170015.

Operator ID: 15007.

Reported incident date: 1/8/2017 13:47.

Location detail: MP 0.93

Cause detail: FAILURE OF EQUIPMENT BODY (EXCEPT COMPRESSOR), VESSEL PLATE, OR OTHER MATERIAL

Cause detail: ON JANUARY 8, 2017 AT 1347 HOURS, PG&E WAS NOTIFIED OF A GAS ODOR AT 310 CENTRAL AVENUE IN PITTSBURG. PG&ES GAS SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE (GSR) ARRIVED ON-SITE AT 1352 HOURS AND MEASURED 100% GAS IN AIR IN THE VALVE VAULT. AFTER VENTING THE VAULT FOR ABOUT AN HOUR, ANOTHER READING WAS TAKEN WHICH MEASURED 2% GAS IN AIR. THE LEAK ORIGIN IS THE UPSTREAM FLANGE OF THE 8-INCH STEEL TRANSMISSION VALVE, A-85, ON DFM 3015-01 (MILE POINT 0.93). PG&E REPAIR CREWS STOPPED THE LEAK AND COMPLETED REPAIRS ON JANUARY 12, 2017 AT 1153 HOURS BY ISOLATING THE LINE AND REPLACING THE VALVE. A PG&E REPRESENTATIVE WAS ON-SITE CONTINUOUSLY MONITORING THE LEAK AND ENSURED THE AREA WAS SAFE UNTIL THE REPAIRS WERE COMPLETED. NO POLICE, NO FIRE AND NO MEDIA WERE OBSERVED ON SCENE. THERE WAS NO REPORTED IGNITION, INJURIES, OR FATALITIES. THERE WAS NO CUSTOMER IMPACT. THE VALVE IS LOCATED IN A CHURCH PARKING LOT WHICH GENERATED PUBLIC ATTENTION FROM THE CHURCH CONGREGATION DUE TO THE GAS ODOR. THIS INCIDENT WAS REPORTED TO DOT AT 2005 HOURS (DOT #1168106) AFTER THE COST OF REPAIRS WAS ESTIMATED ABOVE $50,000 AND WAS SUBSEQUENTLY REPORTED TO THE CPUC DUE TO THE COST OF DAMAGES AND PUBLIC ATTENTION.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE — FAILURE OF EQUIPMENT BODY.

PHMSA indexed costs: $296,923 reported total cost, $145,212.331 in 1984 dollars, $357,431.542 in current-year dollars.

PHMSA trend flags, standardized causes, and indexed costs are analytical fields added to operator-reported incident data. They do not represent final agency causal findings.