On September 9th, 2010, a natural gas pipeline in San Bruno, California exploded. This explosion destroyed an entire neighborhood, killed four as of now, and left many homeless. There were fifty-eight homes destroyed and millions of dollars in damage. This raises many questions and ethical issues about the emergency procedures of Pacific Gas & Electric, the company who owned and operated the pipeline.
A Wall Street Journal article explains what happened in the events leading up to this explosion and times in recent history when this company had been negligent and not responded quick enough. For three weeks, residents of this San Bruno neighborhood had been complaining about an odor of gas in the air, and their complaints fell on deaf ears. When PG&E became aware of the leak, it took to long to shut the line off due to manual shut-off valves. California law requires automatic ones, but it gives companies until 2012 to make these updates. This WSJ article also outlines similar instances in PG&E's history, one of them being very recent. In 2008, there was a similar explosion in Rancho Cordova, Calif. However, this explosion cost only one life and one home, paling in comparison to last week's explosion. In this case, residents smelled the odor of gas and it took the company four hours to locate the leak. This, again, was not quick enough in matters that should be dealt with as emergency. Ironically, one month before the 2008 explosion, the company had said it would strive to develop better response methods. The 2010 explosion will cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars and will leave local families scarred indefinitely.
This raises many questions about the ethical practices of these large utility companies. In just two years, PG&E had two explosions with eerily similar circumstances and apparently did not learn their lesson. This is going to continue to shine a bad light on the energy industry as a whole, especially in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Politicians are calling for further regulations on the industry but will that ensure they take social responsibility seriously? I believe these companies need to be tossed around in the media to ruin their public image. When events like this occur, with such a loss of life and property, we as the public need to take action to get these companies to truly ensure the correct emergency procedures, and even further so they update their systems to the safest possible method. For three weeks, the local residents had complained of a gas odor. How did they not respond in three weeks? This is a display of true negligence and they must answer for it. Social responsibility, when concerning human lives, shouldn't be a matter left up to these companies to handle on their own. Time and time again they show us that they aren't making the necessary changes. The energy industry is not in a good position right now and soon the public will want more ethical practices to be in place to ensure no more human lives are lost.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704505804575484140379122562.html?KEYWORDS=california+gas+pipeline+explosion
The problem with this case is that they were, in most ways, abiding the law. I'm sure they will be sued for negligence in the civil courts, but there will be no case in the criminal courts. You never know where the explosion might occur. The lawmakers have even less of a chance of knowing where one might occur than the oil companies, so legislation seems useless. And, don't you think that companies try to avoid situations like these? Isn't it more cost efficient to be as safe as possible than to be sued into bankruptcy or have the company's image forever ruined? I hope that all companies learn from these preventable accidents.
ReplyDeleteI agree in regards to the courts and laws but in terms of social responsibility they should check the leak as soon as it becomes aware to them. Three weeks is simply a joke to me, how could they not have amended the situation in such a long time.
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