PG&E launches huge paper chase for pipeline data Company initiates frantic search of its records to try to prove lines are safe ahead of deadline

Palates of documents sit and are moved around outside of the Cow Palace in Daly City, Calif., Friday, March 4, 2011. Palates of documents sit and are moved around outside of the Cow Palace in Daly City, Calif., Friday, March 4, 2011. Photo: Susana Bates, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Susana Bates, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close PG&E launches huge paper chase for pipeline data 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

Facing a deadline that could mean the difference between doing business as usual or cutting pressure on hundreds of miles of natural-gas pipeline, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has recruited employees to the Cow Palace grounds for a round-the-clock search through tens of thousands of boxes of paperwork.

Their job: Find proof in documents, some of them crumbling and dating back decades, that PG&E's gas lines are as safe as the utility says they are.

For the past couple of days, forklifts have been carting pallets loaded with 30 boxes each into three warehouses outside the 70-year-old arena in Daly City. Friday afternoon, there were still more than 100 pallets stacked outside the warehouses waiting to go in.

"There are 100,000 boxes in there, and you can't believe the papers spread everywhere," one PG&E employee said as she took a break. "There are records in there going back to the 1920s.

"Boy, what happens if there was a fire at the Cow Palace right now? You'd lose an awful lot of history."

Officially, the paper hunt at the Cow Palace is a secret. PG&E managers would not confirm it was going on there, although they did say the utility was enlisting employees around the state to sift through records.

"This is a private party," is all a tight-lipped security guard would say at Cow Palace Gate 5 on Geneva Avenue, as PG&E employees in company uniforms streamed in and out. Some said they had been told PG&E would need them there for one to three weeks.

The cause of all the commotion is that the utility is under orders from the state Public Utilities Commission to produce, by March 15, records detailing intricate characteristics of gas-transmission pipelines all over Northern and Central California.

The agency issued the order after PG&E's records about the transmission pipeline that exploded Sept. 9 in San Bruno, killing eight people and destroying 38 homes, were found to be inaccurate.

The records in PG&E's computers described the pipe as seamless. But when investigators sifted through the rubble after the blast, they found a badly welded seam that they believe was the origin point of the blast. PG&E had never conducted an inspection on the line that could find a bad weld.

PG&E's conversion of old paper records to computer has been troubled for years, and company President Chris Johns said last month that the utility had been unable to find documents for 30 percent of its 1,000-plus miles of pipeline running under urban areas.

If those records don't turn up, the state could force PG&E to cut gas pressure by 20 percent on hundreds of miles of pipeline. It could also order testing that would take lines out of service for days.

PG&E spokesman Joe Molica said the utility is working in many locations to compile records related specifically to the commission's demand, and more.

"We're looking at all kinds of parameters, and our data validation efforts are going on throughout the service area, meaning Northern and Central California," he said. "We're doing a 24-7 records search involving at least 300 employees and contractors, and we're working to confirm the quality of our data through collecting and validating our gas transmission pipeline records."

One PG&E worker at the Cow Palace on Friday said management had asked for 1,000 company employees to help with the project.

Molica said the utility hopes the frantic hunt will ultimately "enhance the safety of our system."