Pacific Gas & Electric incents inspectors to find fewer leaks, with tragic results

There was a tragic accounting of the cost of hiding mistakes in the San Francisco Chronicle this week. In a report on the San Bruno, California, gas explosion in September 2010 that killed eight people, the Chronicle indicted a culture of PG&E mistake-hiding that readers of this blog know creates bad outcomes.

The entire article is vital reading, but you can learn much of what you need to know by reading the story's lede:

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. long relied on leak surveys to determine that its gas transmission pipelines were safe even as it was handing out bonuses to supervisors whose crews found fewer leaks and kept repair costs down, a Chronicle investigation has found.

PG&E did not scrap the leak-related incentive system until two years before the September 2010 blast in San Bruno that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes. It did so then only after three company whistle-blowers complained to PG&E's top officials and board of directors that the utility was encouraging supervisors to overlook possible safety threats.

The complaints led to an internal company audit in April 2008 that concluded the policy of providing incentives for finding fewer leaks encouraged crews to produce inaccurate surveys. The policy was among several factors keeping PG&E from being able to "effectively identify leaks and to reduce risks to employees and customer safety," the audit said.

Prompted by the audit's findings, PG&E conducted a rush inspection of its entire gas distribution and transmission system starting in October 2008. The surveys uncovered many more leaks than crews had found in checks performed since 2004.

[Thanks to Bob Sutton (@work_matters) for pointing to this article.]