Detroit, MI- Consumers Energy employees failed to follow natural gas safety regulations and standards in fatal explosions in December 2010 in Wayne and again in February in Royal Oak, the Michigan Public Service Commission concluded in levying fines against the utility.
Additionally, Consumers has agreed to pay $1 million to create a new fund to help victims of natural gas disasters in response to the Feb. 27 natural gas explosion that killed a Royal Oak man, destroyed his home and damaged more than 30 other homes in the neighborhood, state Attorney General Bill Schuette separately announced today.
The utility agreed to pay a $340,000 fine levied by the MPSC, the state’s utility regulator, related to the Royal Oak blast and another $90,000 fine for the Wayne gas explosion that destroyed the William C. Franks Furniture store, killing two employees and severely injuring the store’s owner.
In the Royal Oak incident, a Consumers crew installing a new gas main failed to follow regulations and locate an underground gas pipeline that it later struck and then failed to properly respond to the gas leak it caused, the MPSC stated in a report released today. Daniel Malczynski, 58, was killed in the blast.
In a separate investigative report, the MPSC found the gas leak that led to the Dec. 29, 2010, Franks Furniture explosion was caused by pressure over time from construction of a nearby sanitary sewer, as well as a chain-link fence and concrete wall constructed above the line. A sinkhole reported in the area also may have been a factor.
But investigators concluded Consumers employees failed to follow regulations in their response before the explosion. If a complete and thorough investigation had been conducted by a Consumers employee responding to the first of two citizen calls about gas odors in the area, immediate actions may have been taken to identify the source and extent of the leak and evacuate the area until conditions were made safe, the MPSC stated in its report.
Franks Furniture employees James Zell, 64, and Leslie Machniak, 54, were killed in the explosion, which also severely injured store owner Paul Franks, then 64.
Schuette, in a release, said the $1 million settlement had two main goals.
First, to ensure tragedies like this are not repeated; and second, to provide a safety net for Consumers Energy customers who face the unthinkable tragedy of a natural gas disaster, he said.
Consumers Energy officials, in a release today, fully accepted the MPSC’s findings and the fines announced by both the regulator and Schuette.
As we’ve said previously, these incidents failed to meet our standards, or the standards expected by our customers across Michigan, the statement said. For the Royal Oak incident, we have announced disciplinary measures, including terminations, for employees involved in this incident who failed to follow established policies and procedures. We have reinforced our training and policy education for all employees who work on our natural gas system.
On Feb. 27, a Consumers crew in Royal Oak was replacing a steel gas main installed in 1929 through directional boring, a method of digging underground horizontally that requires less trenching and ground disturbance. The process involves sophisticated equipment and requires knowing the precise location of existing underground pipelines.
Two members of the crew were not properly qualified to locate pipelines, and a qualified supervisor who should have been overseeing their work only came to the site to drop off drawings for the job, the MPSC’s report stated.
Gas service and main lines were damaged by the crew’s directional boring work at two other locations along Cooper Avenue, in addition to the service line in front of Malczynski’s home at 4232 Cooper Ave., the MPSC investigation found.
The report’s finding that the crew did not attempt to expose the existing underground line before its directional boring counters a finding from Consumers’ own review of the incident that said an attempt was made to expose the gas line in front of Malczynski’s home.
Staff’s conclusion is based on the fact that the post-incident inspection of the crossing showed no sign that the soil was disturbed and all tree roots were still intact, the MPSC report stated. If Consumers’ crews had dug down to the service line, the roots and soil would already have been disturbed.
MPSC investigators also found at least 14 other locations where gas main replacement work was occurring in the neighborhood and underground line crossings were not exposed.
Regulations require that new pipeline be installed at a minimum of 24 inches of depth and with 12 inches of separation from other underground facilities. The MPSC’s investigation found more than a dozen locations along the project where those requirements were violated.