PG&E Enlists Help From Former NTSB Chairman

PG&E has brought on a former National Transportation Safety Board chairman to help the utility oversee extensive safety improvements that are underway throughout its pipeline system, the company said today. 

Jim Hall, who led the NTSB from 1994 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton, and his consulting firm, Hall & Associates, will be helping Pacific Gas & Electric Co. with implementing the safety recommendations the NTSB and California Public Utilities Commission made during and after their investigations into the Sept. 9, 2010, pipeline explosion.  

The NTSB made , including that PG&E kept faulty pipeline records, the company had an incomplete integrity management program and that PG&E was able to circumvent federal pipeline safety laws because it installed many of its lines before certain policies were established. As a result, the NTSB recommended that PG&E pressure-test its gas transmission lines that lacked proper records, similar to the pipe that exploded in San Bruno, and beef up its communication with emergency responders, among many other things. 

PG&E said Hall will provide his advice directly to Nick Stavropoulos, the utility's executive vice president of gas operations—who was hired by the company for the newly created position after the disaster—as well as to Anthony Earley, PG&E Corp.'s CEO and the executive director of the CPUC. 

“Bringing in an outside expert with former NTSB Chairman Hall’s experience and expertise is yet another action we are taking to make certain our improvement plans achieve long-term, positive change in the way we operate our gas system,” Stavropoulos said in a statement. 

The utility didn't say how much Hall and his firm will be paid for the advisory work, only that he will hold a position as an outside adviser.