California alleges utility falsified pipeline safety records

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — 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. The company “had common knowledge among its supervisors that locators falsified data,” the commission 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. “These findings are another example of why we are investigating PG&E’s safety culture.”

PG&E said it has hired more employees and improved its pipeline tracking system.

“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. Regulators also fined PG&E $1.6 billion for the blast.

The investigation was forwarded Thursday to a judge, who will hear testimony on the findings and will allow PG&E to provide evidence that it didn’t violate safety laws.