PG&E says workers falsified underground inspections UTILITIES Installations might have not been checked

(Published July 2, 2011)﻿

Fourteen Pacific Gas and Electric Co. workers assigned to inspect underground equipment may have falsified records, claiming to check installations they never examined.

Those are the results of an internal PG&E investigation that the utility, California's largest, revealed Thursday. While the company has fired or suspended all but two of the workers involved, the problem could lead to more fines against PG&E, whose operations have come under intense scrutiny after last year's fatal pipeline explosion in San Bruno.

PG&E's investigation began last fall with a tip from an employee who said some contractors hired by the company in its San Jose division had not even opened the underground enclosures they were supposed to inspect. The small enclosures hold equipment such as switches and cables and must be inspected once every three years.

"When we heard about this, we took these allegations seriously and acted swiftly," said PG&E spokesman Andrew Souvall.

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The company examined 273 underground enclosures - all in the San Jose area - that had recently been inspected. Of those, PG&E found evidence that 73 may not have been opened. Three PG&E employees and five contractors were supposed to have inspected those enclosures.

After finding problems in the San Jose division - which also includes Gilroy, Milpitas and Morgan Hill - PG&E broadened the investigation to include the rest of its service territory.

The company looked at another 1,143 recently inspected enclosures across Northern and Central California and found seven that probably had not been opened, including one in San Francisco and another in the East Bay. Five employees and one contractor were responsible for those seven enclosures.

Because most of the possibly faked inspections were in San Jose, PG&E will check all of the underground sites that its San Jose division was supposed to inspect in 2010 and 2011 - more than 13,700 enclosures in all, Souvall said. The work should finish by mid-October and will be funded by PG&E's shareholders, not the company's customers.

"We are committed to looking at every part of our operations," he said.

PG&E has reported the investigation and its results to the California Public Utilities Commission, which has regulatory authority over the company. The commission's executive director, Paul Clanon, said his staff will look into the situation.

"PG&E's safety problems run deeper than natural gas pipelines," he said, in an e-mailed statement. "PG&E now faces an additional investigation and possibly more fines. I am encouraged that PG&E took immediate action when this matter was brought to their attention and that they will now inspect, or reinspect, all underground enclosures."