Petaluma neighbors band together over PG&E gas line testing site

When the large packets arrived in residential mailboxes around Petaluma’s Lucchesi Park last September, they offered homeowners a simple choice: Did they want a wooden fence or a concrete wall around PG&E’s new gas line testing site?

Door-to-door persuasion struck a similar tone of inevitability, as the utility sought to gain neighborhood approval for a project that will require demolition of two homes at North McDowell Boulevard and East Madison Street.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. had already spent $1.3 million in February 2020 to buy the two homes targeted for demolition. But in this eastside neighborhood, built in the 1950s as the Novak 3 subdivision, decades-old restrictive covenants require the approval of the majority of homeowners to build anything that’s not a single-family home.

As the utility giant’s pressure campaign ramped up, with offers ranging from $200-$2,000 for each homeowner signature, neighbors began to organize, forming a block of 65 residents that could stand in the way of PG&E’s plans in one of Petaluma’s oldest eastside neighborhoods.

“PG&E thought they were coming into an old district, with older people living here, with people who weren’t going to question anything,” said Kathleen Alvarado, a career civil rights attorney who has taken the case on behalf her neighbors. “They did not anticipate a group of inquisitive people, or that there would be a lawyer in the neighborhood who was willing to get involved and have this move forward.”

The result, Alvarado said, is an unprecedented agreement from the utility to negotiate solely with her neighborhood group. The memorandum of understanding, which PG&E officials have acknowledged, includes an agreement to have real estate and environmental experts scrutinize the impacts of the proposed testing site, which would be the first of its kind in Sonoma County.

Although the utility maintains more than 200 inspection sites throughout its service area, which stretches from Humboldt County to Santa Barbara, there are just five so-called valve lots – in Walnut Creek, Turlock, Clovis, Union City and Novato. At each, PG&E is able to launch a specialized instrument to uncover corrosion, dents, cracks and other areas of concern along the utility’s subsurface pipes.

It’s the kind of testing that could have prevented the September 2010 explosion that rocked a San Bruno neighborhood, killing eight people, injuring 58 others and leveling dozens of homes.

Although the testing was required by federal law before the explosion, the San Bruno event, which led to a $1.6 billion fine for PG&E, added urgency to the utility’s work in mapping and testing some 1,800 miles of transmission pipeline.

“PG&E conducts safety inspections on both the internal and external portions of its gas transmission lines that inclade many processes and high-tech tools such as mini robots, cameras, pressure testing and in-line inspections,” said company spokeswoman Deanna Contreras. “These inspections are essential to the safe and reliable delivery of natural gas.”

The properties at 1405 and 1401 East Madison St. are ideal for the utility’s purposes, providing ready access to a 24-inch transmission pipeline installed in 2015 that runs beneath McDowell Boulevard. From the site just south of the city’s Public Works & Utilities headquarters, PG&E would be able to reach 23 miles of transmission pipeline running between Petaluma and Napa.

Testing with the so-called “smart pig” instrument can last up to 49 days, but it’s required just once every five to seven years.

“When it’s not in use, it’s basically a gravel lot with a couple of valves,” Contreras said.

Work to clear the homes and construct the site is expected to begin in early 2023, Contreras said.

PG&E has the power to declare eminent domain, but Contreras said the company would prefer to work with neighbors. Both groups say they expect to reach an agreement in the coming weeks, although the final parameters will likely remain confidential.

“The project is necessary to continue to provide safe and reliable gas service to the area,” Contreras said. “We do have the power of eminent domain, but we want to do everything we can to avoid using it. We are hopeful we will be able to reach an agreement with all of the customers in the area.”

The utility signed an agreement to negotiate with Alvarado’s group in late May. The neighborhood group, which comprises 65 of the 196 rooftops in the subdivision, has also hired experts to study the impacts. It’s a step Alvarado touts as key to ongoing negotiations, which could have been derailed by initial neighborhood vitriol.

Along with Brett Reynolds, a senior vice president and shareholder with the real estate firm Kidder Mathews in San Francisco, the group has hired James Jacobs, a geologist with Richmond-based Clearwater group.

“We’re not protesting the fact that they need to build the (testing site), we’re voicing concerns about, if you’re going to build the site, have you chosen the appropriate site based on all of these factors?” Alvarado said. “Have you addressed all of the concerns that could impact the neighborhood environmentally and through the property value standpoint? That’s what we’re trying to do.”

Throughout the process, Alvarado said neighbors have raised concerns about neighborhood impacts during construction and testing, as well as questions about the future of the site if PG&E eventually abandons the facility.

Alvarado, who also represents herself and her husband in negotiations with PG&E, declined to cite a desired dollar amount for neighbors, or to delve into any ultimatums related to the project. She is getting paid for her work, an amount she characterized as “nominal.”

But she said she was drawn to the fight after receiving mail from PG&E, and after neighbor Chrissy Minick started a campaign to organize the neighbors’ response.

“I just wanted to represent, basically, the underdog, and empower everybody to have a voice and move forward in an organized fashion,” she said. “And that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

Alvarado said such straightforward negotiations with less powerful neighborhood groups could represent a better path forward for the utility, which is still grappling with severe image problems in the wake of multi-billion dollar payouts from deadly wildfires sparked by its equipment.

“PG&E has got to break the cycle of going in and taking over and building things,” Alvarado said. “All of this needs to be addressed at the forefront. It’s only going to benefit PG&E in the end, and whoever they’re dealing with…this can be a blueprint for how to move forward with these types of transactions.”

Tyler Silvy is editor of the Petaluma Argus-Courier. Reach him at tyler.silvy@arguscourier.com, 707-776-8458, or @tylersilvy on Twitter.