Pipeline fix was planned - but never happened (a few miles north of San Bruno)

[Kadie]

Pipeline fix was planned - but never happened
David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

(09-15) 16:24 PDT -- Three years ago, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. asked state regulators for $4.9 million to replace a portion of the same natural gas pipeline that ruptured last week and set a San Bruno neighborhood on fire.

State regulators agreed, and the work was scheduled to be done in 2009. The price became part of the rates all PG&E customers pay.

But the pipeline replacement - in South San Francisco, a few miles north of last week's blast site - never happened. And now PG&E wants an additional $5 million to do the same job, according to PG&E documents released today by a consumer group.

"If they'd fixed the section they said they said they were going to fix, maybe they would have found something a few miles south - we don't know," said Mike Florio, senior staff attorney for The Utility Reform Network, which released the documents.

PG&E did not respond to a request for comments.

more...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/15/BU0N1FEM36.DTL&tsp=1

[Curmudgeoness]

1. Unfettered markets. Get government out of our business.

We can regulate ourselves without the government forcing us.

Have you heard all this before? And this is what happens when we get out of the way of business. Corporations have the same rights as individuals. With rights come responsibilities. Who is going to prison for killing all those people?