Gas Lines Embedded In Concrete: Audit Turns Up 'Amazing' Results

San Francisco CA

20 December, 2021

6:46 PM

Description

By Joe Eskenazi, Mission Local December 20, 2021 In April, Mission Local revealed that building inspectors, starting all the way back in 2016, had warned their higher ups at the Department of Building Inspection that gas lines were being improperly encased in concrete during the city's mandatory seismic retrofitting program. The Department of Building Inspection's response to those warnings was not stellar. On the very day in January 2017 that inspectors were given a presentation on the dangers of ruptured gas lines referencing the 1937 New London, Texas explosion that killed nearly 300 students and teachers, then-chief building inspector Patrick O'Riordan sent out a dictum. It instructed his inspectors to "not stop the work" if they discovered gas lines in foundations. Multiple sources have stated that inspectors who balked at pipes merely wrapped with duct tape, electrical tape, building paper, or nothing at all being encased in concrete found themselves transferred to other divisions. At an explosive meeting in August 2017, an engineer told a DBI expert panel that gas lines going through foundations was a problem on "pretty much every project" he oversaw in the city. And, rather than deal with monthslong delays from PG&E, contractors' "usual solution" is to "pour the concrete and cross your fingers … It's a silly game and everyone is doing something illegal and unsafe instead of saying, 'look, let's acknowledge the situation.'" To read the full article, click here. Mission Local covers San Francisco from the vantage point of the Mission, a neighborhood with all of the promise and problems of a major city. You can support Mission Local here.