Company Says It Will Replace Gas Pipeline at Explosion Site

Officials of the Calnev Pipeline Co., armed with a federal court order preventing the City of San Bernardino from stopping them, announced plans Sunday to replace a 600-foot section of gasoline pipeline where an explosion last week killed two people and injured 31 others.

The officials, saying that a new, stronger pipeline would follow the exact alignment of the ruptured line, rejected pleas from the city that they relocate the line to the other side of Southern Pacific Railroad tracks.

That would have placed the berm that supports the railroad tracks between the pipeline and the poor neighborhood that was devastated by Thursday’s blast and by a massive train derailment two weeks earlier that killed four and injured 11. A total of 26 homes were destroyed or damaged in the two incidents.

But Calnev officials said that relocating the line would cause a six- to eight-week interruption of service on the 250-mile line that normally supplies Las Vegas with about 90% of its gasoline. Lawyers for the company told U.S. District Judge David Williams late Saturday that it would take about five days to reconstruct the line in its present location.

Judge Williams issued the restraining order to Calnev attorneys at his home in Westwood at 11:05 p.m. Saturday night. He set a hearing for Friday to consider making the order permanent.

Little Recourse

The judge said Calnev could proceed with reconstructive work “within the present right-of-way” as long as “such activity is authorized by the U.S. Department of Transportation.” That is the agency that has ultimate authority to approve the pipeline.

San Bernardino City Atty. James Penman said late Sunday that in his estimate, the city now has almost no legal recourse to block a start-up of the pipeline when it is reconstructed.

“The interstate pipelines are under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Pipeline Safety,” he acknowledged. “Under federal law, we can’t even sue the pipeline company (for 60 days).”

“We have asked the Office of Pipeline Safety and the state fire marshal’s pipeline division, which performs inspections for it, and the National Transportation Safety Board to give the city assurance in writing that it is safe to reopen the pipeline before they do it, and all three of those agencies have refused to give us such assurance,” he said. “That puts us in one heck of a fix.”

Penman decried “all these cross-lines of authority,” saying, “We have no authority to get (the various agencies) to do anything, yet our people here blame us when something happens.”

Sunday, a Calnev attorney, Charles Diamond, accused Penman of “highly irresponsible” conduct in having told Calnev representatives before the injunction was sought that San Bernardino police would stop them from doing any work to reconstruct the pipeline.

“When Mr. Penman threatened to use the police, we took him seriously,” said Diamond. “In this country, when there are legitimate disputes between responsible parties, we seek to have them properly adjudicated. We don’t threaten violence.”

Penman responded later, “There was never violence threatened and Mr. Diamond knows that.”

The city attorney said Calnev “represented to our Fire Department personnel that they had inspected the entire line, and then, after the tragic explosion and fire that occurred Thursday, they admitted that they had not.”

Penman said he had warned Diamond on Saturday, at a time when he said Calnev officials were indicating they might move the reconstructed pipeline even closer to private property, “that our police, who were out there to prevent looting, vandalism and trespassing, would treat Calnev the same as any other trespasser.”

A few hours later, Penman said, Diamond informed him that a hearing would be held in about an hour on a restraining order against the city at Judge Williams’ home.

Sunday, Robert Claypoole, the Chicago-based president of GATX Terminals Corp., owner of Calnev, said that moving the pipeline closer to the homes was an option that had been explored but abandoned.

Claypoole said that the pipeline would be built to exceed federal specifications and that “we will not resume any operation of the pipeline until we and the official agencies responsible for pipeline safety are convinced that the line can run safely.”

He said Calnev and Southern Pacific are now considering buying out the owners of the destroyed and damaged houses and leaving the lots on which the houses were located as a kind of buffer between the pipeline and other homes in the Muscoy area of western San Bernardino.

Penman said the city, by contrast, had suggested a compromise to Calnev under which the city would let the company repair and use the present line pending construction of a permanent line on the other side of the tracks where there are no nearby homes. He said the city also wanted Calnev to agree to pay room and board for hundreds of people displaced from the affected neighborhood in the meantime.

The city attorney quoted Calnev officials as telling him that solution would be too expensive. But Claypoole denied Sunday that expense motivated the company’s stand against relocating the line.

Claypoole said relocation of the line would cause too long an interruption of service “to numerous Air Force bases vital to our national defense as well as fuel for the city of Las Vegas.” Nonetheless, he went on, “Our first and foremost concern is for the people of this (San Bernardino) area.” He noted that for the time being Calnev and Southern Pacific are paying room and board for displaced persons.

Claypoole said the new section of pipeline will be buried six feet, compared to four to eight feet as it was in the past, and encased in a concrete mixture that would be poured over it. The pipe will be laid in a bed of sifted sand. These steps, he said, would “enhance safety beyond legal requirements.”