Mercury News

Bowing to public pressure, PG&E released a long-awaited list Monday of its “Top 100” riskiest natural gas pipeline segments and their locations along its 6,700 miles of gas transmission lines.

Eleven of the segments are in Silicon Valley, with one — located near Highway 237 and Ranch Drive by the San Jose-Milpitas border — ranked seventh among the 100.

While PG&E and the California Public Utilities Commission said there were no reasons for safety concerns, public officials remained nervous and had questions about many of the listed locations.

“Let’s get them fixed. What are we waiting for?” said San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed. “I think we need to be concerned until we get better information about what caused the explosion in San Bruno.”

And, underscoring the difficulty in using the list to predict risk, the San Bruno pipe that exploded Sept. 9, killing four and leaving three unaccounted for, was not one of the 100 high-risk lines.

In releasing the list, PG&E President Christopher Johns stressed that the document is used for planning purposes and shows problems ranging from corrosion to earthquake risk, rather than problems that pose an imminent danger to the public.

“Whenever we identify any potential threat to public safety, we immediately go and address the situation,” he said.

The company also set up a hot line — 888-743-7431 — that people can call to learn if any gas transmission lines, including the 100 sites on the list, are within 500 feet of their property. It also set up a website containing maps and the list at www.pge.com/pipelineplanning.

A similar assurance was offered by Paul Clanon, executive director of the PUC, which asked PG&E on Friday to make the list public.

“The list is not of pipelines that are at risk or dangerous,” he said in a prepared statement.

Nonetheless, some public officials remained worried about the listed sites, in part because PG&E itself has previously referred to them as representing relatively high levels of risk.

Assemblyman Jerry Hill, who represents San Bruno, called the data PG&E released “inadequate” and said he was disturbed by inconsistent information from the utility.

“PG&E keeps changing its story,” Hill said.

He noted that in 2007, PG&E listed a segment in South San Francisco — along the same transmission line that exploded in San Bruno — as being on the list when it asked the PUC for a rate hike. Failing to replace that pipe, the company said at the time, “makes the risk of a failure at this location unacceptably high.”

Yet Hill noted the South San Francisco section wasn’t included in the list the company released Monday.

Reed called PG&E’s disclosure a good start. But he said it wasn’t detailed enough for him to provide clear guidance to people living in the affected areas of North San Jose, because it wasn’t possible to clearly see exactly which streets the pipelines run near.

“We are going to have a meeting Thursday with PG&E to help find out more,” Reed said.

The 11 segments are in seven separate locations. One is along Nicholson Lane, at North First Street near Highway 237. That segment of natural gas transmission pipeline, 2,628 feet long, is on the list because it needs to be replaced at several locations and have retrofits so that state-of-the-art inspection devices known as “smart pigs” can be used inside the lines, PG&E documents show. Work is scheduled for 2012-13.

At the corner of Nicholson Lane and North First is a small commercial plaza. Across the street is an industrial park, with a telecommunications center and an empty building for lease.

Mostly, however, a wide swath of mobile homes line Nicholson Lane.

When told about the gas-line segment being on the list, Martha Jimenez, who moved to Westwinds mobile home park last year with her husband and two children, grimaced. “I don’t feel good about it,” she said. “Hopefully, everything is fine, I don’t want to have to move.”

That site is one of several between Milpitas and Crystal Springs Reservoir where PG&E said pipeline upgrades are needed because of the “potential for ground movement.”

“We may have to have PG&E come down and meet with our community,” Reed said.

The maps PG&E released were so vague that Reed and his public works department could not tell if the two other locations near San Jose are actually in the city limits. Both spots, identified on the PG&E list as having 10 feet of pipe each that need work because of a “potential for ground movement,” are located along Highway 237 near Ranch Drive in San Jose.

Another Silicon Valley location that turned up on the Top 100 list is 6,005 feet of natural gas transmission lines running along the southwestern edge of the Stanford University campus. There, along Junipero Serra Boulevard between Page Mill Road and Sand Hill Road, four sections of pipeline were listed as having a potential for corrosion, according to the PG&E documents.

“The system was adjusted for better protection,” the documents say, noting “analysis of the system in 2009 showed a marked improvement” so no further action is planned. No details on the kind of corrosion or the corrective action taken were given.

“We were heartened to hear that the system was adjusted for better protection, but our question is what does it mean that it is still on the list?” Lisa Lapin, a spokeswoman for Stanford, asked.

Noting that the line in question runs under Stanford’s golf course, as well as under some faculty housing, she added, “we don’t want people to be alarmed, but we are seeking more information.”

Other Silicon Valley sites on the list were in San Carlos, Menlo Park and Fremont, where two segments were included.

As recently as a year ago, one of the Fremont segments was ranked No. 2 on the Top 100 list. This time, one of Fremont’s segments was ranked 12th and another 31st, and the top-ranked site was in Cordelia. PG&E says it constantly adjusts the list to reflect changing factors affecting its gas lines.

In a separate development Monday, the PUC released records of its 2008 audit of the Peninsula district of PG&E’s natural gas system, which criticized the company for missing pressure documentation, a malfunctioning device that regulates pressure and having an unqualified employee checking for leaks in pipes running through business districts.

PG&E rebuilt the monitor and determined that the inspector was qualified but that his supervisor had failed to turn in the employee’s certification paperwork. Record-keeping problems were also addressed, the utility said.

Mercury News staff writer Sandra Gonzales contributed to this report. Contact Steve Johnson at sjohnson@mercurynews.com or 408-920-5043.