Xcel Energy, Public Service Co. of Colorado on trial in fatal pipeline accident

GEORGETOWN, Colo. - Xcel Energy and the Public Service Company of Colorado are on trial for allegedly violating workplace safety rules.

In October 2007, five employees of RPI Coating were trapped when a fire broke out inside the Cabin Creek Hydro Plant pipeline, well below the surface of the ground near Georgetown. All five men were killed. The youngest was 19 and the oldest was 52.

When the fire happened, it was a worst-case scenario that became real.

"We have a fire in our penstock - our tunnel," a person told a 911 dispatcher at the time. "There are people trapped in that penstock."

The men had no way out. The chemical fire was 1,000 feet underground.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board says the men were working on relining the pipe when the fire began. The workers on one side of the fire had a path to safety. Those on the other side did not. They died in the pipe less than an hour later. The coroner says they were killed by the fire's smoke.

The trial of Xcel began on June 1 after attorneys for both sides worked to pick a jury on May 31.

Federal investigators cite defective welds as likely cause of fatal San Bruno blast

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - A federal report issued on Jan. 21 says that the natural gas pipe that ruptured in San Bruno on Sept. 9, killing eight people and destroying 38 homes, had numerous flawed welds. According to some experts cited, the pipe did not meet even the welding standards in place when it was installed in 1956.

The metallurgical report shed new light on the blast, identifying for the first time a particular seam weld as the site of the rupture. It found that the weld was half as thick as it should have been.

The problem seam weld in San Bruno, the NTSB report notes, developed a crack "consistent with ductile overstress from the root of the weld." A surge eventually ripped apart the line at the seam at a time when pressure ran up to 386 pounds per square inch. The pressure surged because of a malfunction of the pipeline system's power source before the San Bruno explosion.

The report noted that there were several circumferential, or girth, welds, and all of them had similar flaws. One of them also failed in the accident, but the report did not specify the cause of the "overstress" on those welds.

Sheehan employee killed in Rockies Express construction accident

SHELBYVILLE, Ind. – Funeral services were held April 5 in Baxter, Tenn., for Randy Lynn Gardner, 46, who died while working on construction of the Rockies Express Pipeline in Decatur County, Ind.
Gardner died on April 1 at an Indianapolis hospital after being crushed by a rig mat on the construction job.
An account has been set up at Fifth Third Bank In Shelbyville, in care of Shelly Davis, for those who wish to make donations on behalf of Randy Lynn Gardner.
A spokesman for the pipeline's general contractor, Sheehan Pipe Line Construction Co. of Tulsa, Okla., told The Shelbyville News that the accident occurred about eight miles northwest of Greensburg, Ind.
"This is like a loss in the family, because it is a tightly knit industry, and the loss of anyone in it is like the loss of a family member and it affects us very deeply," said Leonard Pataki, director of administration and general counsel for Sheehan. "The pipeline industry is a close-knit business. We have third-generation people working for the company. Many people knew him. It's a tragedy. From our perspective, we've lost a member of the Sheehan family."
Pataki said the last time the pipeline company experienced a fatality was in June 2007 in Utah near the Utah-Wyoming border, when a Sheehan truck driver was involved in rollover accident.
Shortly after the accident occurred in which Gardner was fatally injured, a pipeline worker called a local newspaper to express safety concerns about the project. He said there were three incidents two days before the fatal accident that could have resulted in serious injuries, and there have been other close calls before the April 1 fatality.