SAN DIEGO GAS & ELECTRIC CO — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2012-05-23

Gas transmission and gathering incident in SAN DIEGO, SAN DIEGO County, CA. Reported cause: OTHER OUTSIDE FORCE DAMAGE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 0 NATURAL GAS released, $36,000 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: 20120064.

Operator ID: 18112.

Reported incident date: 5/23/2012 9:43.

Location detail: 45.73

Cause detail: NEARBY INDUSTRIAL, MAN-MADE, OR OTHER FIRE/EXPLOSION AS PRIMARY CAUSE OF INCIDENT

Cause detail: DURING PLANNED PIPELINE BLOWDOWN, ESCAPING GAS IGNITED AT LOCATION OF OVERHEAD ELECTRICAL FACILITIES. GAS WAS SHUT OFF IMMEDIATELY, STOPPING FIRE. NON-ENERGIZED STATIC LINE DROPPED ACROSS ROADWAY AND WAS STUCK BY 2 VEHICLES. DRUG AND ALCOHOL TESTS WERE PERFORMED ON 8 SDG&E EMPLOYEES AND 5 CONTRACTORS. ALL PASSED. THE IMMEDIATE CORRECTION IS TO TAKE AN ELECTRIC OUTAGE ON ALL OVERHEAD ELECTRIC CIRCUITS NEAR BLOWDOWN SITES. IF THAT IS NOT POSSIBLE, A SITE EVALUATION WILL BE PERFORMED BY A QUALIFIED CONSULTANT TO DETERMINE THE SAFE DISTANCE WHEREBY A BLOWDOWN MAY BE PERFORMED. THE PERMANENT SOLUTION IS TO DEVELOP A SET OF GUIDELINES LISTING THE DISTANCES, VOLTAGES, WEATHER CONDITIONS, ETC., WHEREBY BLOWDOWNS MAY BE SAFELY PERFORMED AT ANY SITE. ANY BLOWDOWN DEVIATING FROM THOSE GUIDELINES WOULD REQUIRE A SITE-SPECIFIC EVALUATION.

PHMSA trend classification: not significant, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: OTHER OUTSIDE FORCE DAMAGE — FIRE/EXPLOSION AS PRIMARY CAUSE.

PHMSA indexed costs: $69,240 reported total cost, $36,542.723 in 1984 dollars, $89,745.989 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.