Walnut Creek gas line upand running after fatal blast

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Nov 16, 2004 | by Simon Read, STAFF WRITER

WALNUT CREEK -- The petroleum pipeline at the center of last week's fatal explosion is back in service, officials said.

The 60-mile-long, 10-inch-diameter pipeline that pumps gasoline, jet fuel and diesel from Concord to San Jose resumed service at 10:40 p.m. Saturday, officials said. The explosion left five workers dead.

Repair work began on the pipeline at 3 p.m. Friday after emergency crews had secured the blast site and removed two bodies from a nearby waterline, said Rick Rainey, a spokesman for Kinder Morgan, the Houston-based company that owns the petroleum line.

It's not known how much gasoline the company lost in the accident, Rainey said.

"We have to back track and see how much product was in the line at the time and how much was sent back to Concord."

After the accident, emergency crews emptied 60 barrels -- or 2,500 gallons -- of gasoline from the damaged line at the blast site, officials said.

The rupture in the line posed no threat to area soil or water, Rainey said.

A crew excavating a waterline last Tuesday for East Bay Municipal Utility District hit the petroleum pipeline that runs para-

llel to the waterline, officials said. It's believed the line may have been hit by a back hoe.

One theory suggests vapors from the ruptured gas line traveled down the waterline and were ignited when they reached two workers who were welding inside the waterline.

Four workers remain hospitalized with burns at UC Davis Medical Center's burn center in Sacramento and Doctors Medical Center in San Pablo.

An investigation, headed by California's Occupational Safety and Health Administration, is under way and likely will take six months, officials said.