I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
The state Public Regulation Commission (PRC) Tuesday voted unanimously to fine the Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) $371,000 for a 2008 incident in which the company failed for two months in 2008 to repair a potentially explosive gas leak in Albuquerque, or even to warn the public of the resulting hazard at the busy intersection of Montgomery Blvd. and Carlisle Blvd.
The fine was the single largest penalty ever imposed by the PRC, according to PRC lead attorney Robert Hirasuna.
“The understatement here is that this could’ve been a real catastrophe,” PRC chairman David King said.
PNM field supervisors and workers sought to cover up the incident and mislead investigators, The Independent reported in May. PNM admitted what happened, but said that its policies were not followed and blamed the incident on a few bad apples.
The New Mexico Gas Company, which took over gas operations from PNM, reprimanded but did not fire the employees involved. PNM retrained employees after the incident.
PNM commissioners said PNM’s corporate culture didn’t emphasize safety enough.
Settlement increased from $66,000 to $371,000
The commission rejected the company’s proposed settlement, negotiated with PRC staff, to pay just $66,000 — $45,000 for the Carlisle leak and $21,000 for various other infractions, such as the failure to properly odorize natural gas to hasten detection of such leaks.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers had contested the proposed settlement as too low. Commissioners agreed and increased the fine for the leak to $350,000, bringing the total penalty to $371,000.
“The commissioners agreed that the situation was just too grave for ($66,000),” King told The Independent before Tuesday’s hearing, referring to the potential for a life-threatening explosion. “We didn’t feel that would send the right deterrent message. That was about what the company’s top guys got in bonuses for one day or something.”
PNM and New Mexico Gas Company, which took over the PNM gas pipeline system in Jan. 2009, were also ordered to establish an anonymous and confidential employee hotline for reporting problems.
Leak was ignored, covered up
The leak went unrepaired for two months after its discovery, PRC Pipeline Safety Bureau inspection reports show.
Business owners at the site of the leak were not warned of the explosive hazard, and in violation of company policy and state and federal regulations, no report of the leak was made to the PRC, the leak was left unattended and no warning signs were put in place.
The IBEW notified PRC staffers of the unresolved leak, prompting an inspection.
When they heard of the coming inspection, PNM supervisors ordered workers to “vent” the underground work vault at the site to reduce gas concentrations and to falsify and backdate a leak report form.
Under the Pipeline Safety Act and PRC regulations, the company could have been fined up to $500,000, King said.
“If this kind of thing happens again, I’d say you can bet on the commission fining the maximum,” King said.
The maximum fine was not imposed because of PNM’s previous good safety record, commissioners said.
Questions about corporate culture
Commissioners had expressed skepticism at a hearing in May over claims the incident was limited to the actions of a few field workers, as the company maintained. But on Tuesday, commissioners King and Marks expressed satisfaction that company executives had not been involved in any cover-up.
“It is really troubling that several employees knew of it but nobody felt comfortable going to higher management (at PNM),” Commissioner Jason Marks said.
The commission took PNM to task for a corporate culture that did not emphasize public or worker safety.
“PNM’s past safety record notwithstanding, the multiple errors and grossly negligent acts that led to the lack of any meaningful response to the Carlisle leak evidence a corporate environment that has failed to instill in its employees the view that public safety is a matter that should be given the highest priority and treated with a sense of urgency,” the PRC order states. “It is the Commission’s hope that the civil penalty imposed upon PNM will motivate NM Gas Company and all other gas facility operators to create and maintain a culture in which public safety, as well as the safety of their employees, are given paramount importance.”
NM Gas Company took over PNM gas operations in Jan. 2009 and reprimanded the workers involved, Regulatory Affairs Manager Rebecca Carter told The Independent, though she would not detail the employees’ punishments.
No employee or supervisor was fired over the incident by either NM Gas Company or PNM.
The employees’ punishments were detailed to commissioners but were not made part of the public record, PRC records show.
“(E)rrors and lapses in judgment committed by PNM’s supervisory employees unnecessarily caused a serious threat to the health and safety of the public to go unaddressed for far too long,” the Commission’s order states. “The disciplinary action taken by PNM and NMGC against those employees was not, in the Commission’s view, commensurate with the serious nature of those errors.” The order goes on to describe the employees’ punishments as “relatively light.”
NM Gas Company has already established an employee hot line and takes public safety very seriously, Carter said. The company completed its own internal investigation into the incident and hired a safety manager to prevent such episodes in the future, she said.
NM Gas Company will closely study Tuesday’s order and work to identify additional ways the company might improve its safety culture, Carter said.
“We have not yet seen the order and we will want to take some time to review it,” PNM spokeswoman Susan Sponar said Tuesday afternoon. “We were disappointed that the Commission did not agree with the original fine amount. That said, from the beginning we have worked cooperatively and transparently with investigators, self-reporting information and acknowledging that we did not follow our own policies and procedures. The Commission acknowledged during the hearings that there was no intent to deceive.”
PNM workers were retrained on safety procedures in the fall of 2008, Sponar said.
“Citizens have great concern when they read about a situation like this (leak),” newly sworn-in commissioner, Theresa Becenti-Aguilar, told her new colleagues at Tuesday’s hearing. “And it reflects badly on the commission.”
