Stanford, PG&E discuss pipeline

Sept. 27, 2010, 2:28 a.m.

Campus officials met with representatives of PG&E on Sept. 22 to continue discussions about a high-pressure PG&E gas pipeline running along Junipero Serra Boulevard, the University said in a statement last week.

Line 109, which runs through campus, has four segments on PG&E’s top-100 list of high-priority maintenance projects. The utility company informed the University about the pipeline on Sept. 20 in documents released publicly in the wake of the Sept. 9 San Bruno explosion.

“We had a very positive exchange and open communication,” Larry Gibbs, associate vice provost for environmental health and safety, told the Stanford News Service. “They were very helpful to us in some areas, particularly in explaining how they are now monitoring pipelines and to help us as we prioritize upcoming campus projects that involve work near gas lines. But they also were not able to provide us some of the information we sought about the status of the Junipero Serra pipeline.”

PG&E officials said they could not discuss pipeline maintenance or conditions while the Sept. 9 explosion is under investigation.

Stanford has chosen to suspend a water and sewer project set for Sept. 20 that would have required digging near Line 109, Gibbs said. PG&E plans to build a gas pressure-reducing station to handle wider gas distribution following more dining and housing construction projects.

“The water and sewer project was not a critical project that needed to be done right away,” Gibbs said. “We decided to wait to make sure anything Stanford does in the area will not interfere with the work needed for the gas distribution hookup.”

-Kabir Sawhney

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