Regulators on Friday accused one of California's largest utilities of falsifying safety documents for natural gas pipelines for years following its criminal conviction and multimillion-dollar fine for a pipeline explosion that killed eight people near San Francisco.
The California Public Utilities Commission said an investigation by its safety and enforcement division found Pacific Gas & Electric Co. lacked enough employees to fulfill requests to find and mark natural gas pipelines.
Because of the staff shortage, PG&E pressured supervisors and locators to complete the work, leading staff to falsify data from 2012 to 2017, regulators said.
"Utility falsification of safety related records is a serious violation of law and diminishes our trust in the utility's reports on their progress," commission President Michael Picker said in a statement.
"We're committed to accurate and thorough reporting and record-keeping, and we didn't live up to that commitment in this case," utility spokesman Matt Nauman said in a statement.
A U.S. judge fined the utility $3 million after it was convicted of six felony charges for failing to properly maintain a natural gas pipeline that exploded in 2010 and wiped out a neighborhood in suburban San Bruno.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection found that PG&E equipment was responsible for starting 16 wildfires last year.
https://ksby.com/news/2018/12/15/regulators-accuse-california-utility-pge-of-falsifying-records-on-natural-gas-pipelines
The California Public Utilities Commission said an investigation by its safety and enforcement division found Pacific Gas & Electric Co. lacked enough employees to fulfill requests to find and mark natural gas pipelines.
Because of the staff shortage, PG&E pressured supervisors and locators to complete the work, leading staff to falsify data from 2012 to 2017, regulators said.
"Utility falsification of safety related records is a serious violation of law and diminishes our trust in the utility's reports on their progress," commission President Michael Picker said in a statement.
"We're committed to accurate and thorough reporting and record-keeping, and we didn't live up to that commitment in this case," utility spokesman Matt Nauman said in a statement.
A U.S. judge fined the utility $3 million after it was convicted of six felony charges for failing to properly maintain a natural gas pipeline that exploded in 2010 and wiped out a neighborhood in suburban San Bruno.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection found that PG&E equipment was responsible for starting 16 wildfires last year.
https://ksby.com/news/2018/12/15/regulators-accuse-california-utility-pge-of-falsifying-records-on-natural-gas-pipelines
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