San Bruno Explosion

A longtime PG&E engineer testified Thursday that he chided his colleagues about having embraced a largely ineffective pipeline inspection method “for financial, not technical reasons.”

A retired PG&E engineer testified Friday that he wrote a dubious “white paper” justification for the company’s avoidance of costly inspections of gas pipelines – a document he said he quickly destroyed after auditors failed to raise the issue before the San Bruno blast.

PG&E engineers boosted pressure on the San Bruno gas pipeline a year before the deadly blast despite knowing its data about the line was riddled with errors, according to testimony Wednesday in the federal criminal trial against the utility.

A bombshell hit the PG&E trial Tuesday with the revelation that the utility may actually have the very gas pipeline test records that federal prosecutors allege the company lacks.

Opening statements in the federal pipeline safety case against PG&E on Friday had government lawyers slamming the company as choosing profits over safety before the deadly San Bruno blast in 2010.

After two years of legal wrangling, the federal case against Pacific Gas and Electric Company on charges of violating pipeline safety laws and obstructing the federal probe of the 2010 San Bruno blast will begin Friday.

Opening statements are now expected as soon as Thursday morning in the federal case against PG&E on pipeline safety counts and a lone charge of obstructing the federal investigation into the 2010 San Bruno blast.

Pacific Gas & Electric Company lawyers and prosecutors sparred in court Tuesday as jury selection began in the federal pipeline safety and obstruction case of the company arising out of the 2010 San Bruno blast.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. says it has lost 12 years of gas-line repair records for part of the San Francisco Bay Area.

It’s been five years since the PG&E gas pipeline explosion leveled the Crestmoor neighborhood in San Bruno and claimed eight lives, but for Maria Barr, it feels like five minutes.

San Bruno marked a somber anniversary on Wednesday, five years after the deadly PG&E blast. Stephanie Chuang reports.

Nearly five years after a PG&E gas pipeline ruptured in San Bruno, killing eight people and destroying 38 homes, the Crestmoor area is starting to resemble a neighborhood again.

The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday voted unanimously to fine PG&E Co. $1.6 billion following a deadly 2010 blast in San Bruno – the largest penalty ever against a California utility – to be paid for by the shareholders.