Regulators are accusing one of California's largest utilities of falsifying safety documents on natural gas pipelines over a five-year period.
The California Public Utilities Commission said Friday that an investigation by its staff found Pacific Gas & Electric Co. lacked enough employees to fulfill requests to find and mark natural gas pipelines.
Regulators say that because of the staff shortage, PG&E pressured supervisors and locators to complete the work, leading staff to falsify data from 2012 to 2017.
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 south of San Francisco in 2010, killing eight people.
PG&E provided the following statement on Friday:
"At PG&E, our most important responsibility is public and employee safety. We’re committed to accurate and thorough reporting and record-keeping, and we didn’t live up to that commitment in this case. Once that became apparent, we took and continue to take additional actions to meet the regulatory standards related to our Locate and Mark record-keeping. Among those actions are: improvements to our system that tracks 811 tickets; an upgraded review and audit protocol; hiring more employees, and enhanced training for employees, to perform this work. We are aware of and cooperating with the CPUC’s investigation. We are fully committed to keeping our customers, communities and co-workers safe every single day."
