An image from the tragic disaster of September 9, 2010.
"I'm sick and tired of this being scared all the time," says San Bruno resident Janel Costanzo, after an incident Saturday in which PG&E unsealed an allegedly unused natural gas pipeline and released an extremely strong odor throughout the neighborhood. This all happened at the site of last September's horrific pipeline blast, as workers were performing their ongoing investigations of all the extant pipelines, per a state mandate to do so.
The pipe in question hadn't been in operation since 1956, as the Chron reports, and shouldn't have had any gas running through it. PG&E has in fact tried to deny that the odor came from gas in the pipe, insisting that it was simply residual odorant built up in the pipe the odorant mercaptan that's added to the naturally odorless gas. But another expert says it's totally ridiculous and likely impossible that there would be odorant in the pipe separate from gas.
PG&E immediately resealed the pipe and halted work, but that doesn't set Costanzo's mind at rest a year later. "It's mind boggling," she said. "I live on a bomb and it makes me angry that they are baffled as to what is going on."
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