After 9/11, little public info about gas lines

SAN FRANCISCO - Public records can reveal a lot about a neighborhood: who's not paying their taxes, where sex offenders live, whether a house for sale has lead paint. Yet if a 2 1/2-foot-wide pipeline carrying highly pressurized, explosive natural gas runs beneath the neighborhood, it's a different story.

Citing fears that terrorists might try to blow up the nation's natural gas pipelines, federal regulators and the industry have made it extremely difficult for homeowners to learn the location of pipelines and any history of inspections and repairs - information that safety advocates say could save lives.

Following a deadly pipeline blast earlier this month in San Bruno, Calif., and serious leaks in Michigan and Illinois, the secrecy surrounding the nation's 2.5-million-mile network of gas transmission lines is facing criticism.

Many of these tight-lipped practices sprang from fears of more attacks after Sept. 11, 2001.

Before then, there were no restrictions on who could look at maps of the nation's gas pipelines. Now, full access to the information is limited to industry and local, state and federal officials.

The federal government also has asked utilities to remove maps of pipeline infrastructure from their websites.

But lawmakers, safety advocates and independent experts say crucial information is being denied to the public, including emergency workers who must respond when something goes wrong.

"Large natural gas transmission pipelines are the equivalent of burying dynamite underground," said Paul Blackburn, a public interest lawyer in Vermillion, S.D., who has worked on oil and gas pipeline matters.

"The public needs to know lives are being put at risk and property is at risk," he said.

The cause of the San Bruno explosion - which killed four people, injured dozens and destroyed nearly 40 homes - remains under investigation, and it is not clear what problems showed up in prior inspections of the 44-year-old Pacific Gas & Electric transmission line.

What is known is that many in San Bruno first learned of the existence of the pipeline on Sept. 9, when gas leaking from the 30-inch line ignited and sent a fireball shooting hundreds of feet above the San Francisco suburb. Four people were killed.