Atherton, Menlo Park: PG&E says hundreds of trees near gas pipelines may be removed

There are many flag lots throughout MP and Atherton which have their gas service running alongside private drives and through neighbors' yards. I know of several where trees are well within 14 ft and even directly above these individual supply lines. In almost all cases PG&E has easements along those minor gas lines. Will PG&E be checking and removing any of those trees?

Can you check that out Barbara?

After years of infrastructure neglect and lack of inspections, PG&E's answer is to remove trees? Is there any evidence that trees actually are a threat to the gas pipelines? Citizens need to force them come up with a smarter way to ensure safe pipelines. Uprooting large trees at this point may actually damage the pipelines!

This is a marvelously and instructively inappropriate response by PG&E to the bad publicity it received after the San Bruno disaster and the subsequent revelations of regulatory capture (the P.U.C. as a wholly-owned subsidiary of PG&E). Instead of changing the corporate culture to actually care about the public's welfare, PG&E does things that are very visible (ads and mailers) and disruptive (street closures, removing heritage trees) to show "how hard they are trying." When an individual behaves this way under criticism, his or her behavior is termed "passive-aggressive".

Wow. I have never heard of such insanity. Replace the pipes or relocate them. Trees like these take hundreds of years to grow. Human shortsightedness and thoughtlessness never ceases to amaze me. Hope the neighbors unite and prevent this awful plan from being executed.

This points out another reason why we need to switch away from using natural gas and move to clean (solar/wind/etc.) electricity. Trees not only provide beauty and shade, they also absurd carbon dioxide.

We should be preserving our investment in trees and move away from dirty and incendiary fossil fuels like methane (natural gas) that are causing climate change. Say "no" to PG&E's plan!

Would using a PIG (Pipeline Inspection Gadget) frequently be an option to cutting down trees?
<SNIP>
Pigs are primarily used in oil and gas pipelines: they are used to clean the pipes but also there are "smart pigs" or "intelligent pigs" used to measure things like pipe thickness and corrosion along the pipeline.<SNIP>

<SNIP>
Pigging refers to the practice of using internal devices, commonly referred to as 'pigs' to perform various operations on the internal side of a pipeline without stopping the flow of the product in the pipeline. <SNIP>

<SNIP>
The use of intelligent pigs to inspect an entire pipeline in a matter of days for internal and external corrosion has revolutionized the pipeline world and the actions taken to repair, replace or monitor corrosion defects has prevented many leaks and ruptures and allowed pipelines to remain in service with a level of confidence previously not able to be used, especially for gas pipelines where annual pressure tests were not normally possible or permitted. Unfortunately due to this technology not being commonly available until the 1980's, many gas pipelines in particular were built in such a configuration that intelligent pigging is not possible (very tight bends, blind tees, diameter changes etc) Some pipelines can be inspected using a tethered pig where the pig has a cable which both transmits data and also physically pulls the pig back wards if flow cannot be reversed. The length of line able to be inspected this way is limited and normally it requires modifications to the pipework to allow normal in-line pigging to occur. <SNIP>

From:
Web Link

Actually it is a good response from PG&E. Shows their total disregards and contempt for their customers. I am sure, like other comments above that alternatives are available w/o hacking down trees.

acomfort
I believe for the use of PIGS the pipeline must be empty, flow of oil stopped. This would likely not be possible on natural gas lines in urban areas as there would be a major interruption to homes, businesses, hospitals, etc.

Whatever,
Maybe you missed these statements from the previous post.

"Pigging refers to the practice of using internal devices, commonly referred to as 'pigs' to perform various operations on the internal side of a pipeline without stopping the flow of the product in the pipeline."

"allowed pipelines to remain in service with a level of confidence previously not able to be used, especially for gas pipelines"

Oops.

Let's see. All of the trees were planted in PG&E easements. Easements which anyone that has ever purchased a piece of property with easements would have been made aware of. Yet, they chose to plant trees in those easements. Now they want to complain because PG&E wants those trees out of their easement? Hello? Perhaps they should have paid attention to the easements when planting trees.

Shame on PG&E for taking this long to address it, but shame on those homeowners for planting trees in the easement. There's a reason there's an easement there.

Menlo Voter's point about homeowners' need to be aware of and respect easements is well taken -- but I wish to add that not all trees arise because the property owner planted them. Many trees are also planted by birds and the wind when you aren't looking. Not that you aren't responsible for those too, of course.

In 2006, when I moved back into my family home in University Heights after it'd been a rental property for 40 years, I found numerous volunteer trees inside the utility easement corridor -- and removed most of them. A couple remain, and, if the utilities ever insist, I'll be out there with my axe, and not complaining.

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com