Technical Assistance in Contra Costa County, California
The Alamo Improvement Association has twice worked with the Pipeline Safety Trust to bring public education forums and written outreach materials to Alamo and the surrounding communities of Contra Costa County. Using funds obtained through a Community Technical Assistance grant from PHMSA, the AIA sponsored workshops and commissioned two reports, one in 2015 and one in 2018. In 2018, our efforts also included the development of a pipeline safety website for the community, allowing the easy dissemination of the workshop presentations and more detailed information relating to pipelines in the area.
2018 Update:
View the new Contra Costa Pipeline Safety website.
Read the 2018 report – Pipeline Safety in Alamo and surrounding areas within Contra Costa County, California (pdf, 9.5MB).
The slide presentations from the public forums held on May 29, 30 and 31 in Alamo, Richmond and Antioch are available below.
- Why care about pipelines? Overview of pipeline safety with focus on Contra Costa County, Carl Weimer, Pipeline Safety Trust Executive Director
- Andy Wells, Manager, Gas Emergency Preparedness, Pacific Gas & Electric, Natural gas transmission and distribution pipeline owner/operator ( Presentations for Alamo, Richmond, Antioch)
- Kenneth Bruno, Safety and Enforcement Division (5/29 only); Paul Penney, Senior Utilities Engineer; Matthewson Epuna, Program and Project Supervisor, California Public Utilities Commission- (regulator of intrastate natural gas pipelines)
- Scott Manley, Director of Operations, Northwest US, and Allen Fore, VP Public Affairs, Kinder Morgan, Inc., Hazardous liquid transmission pipeline owner/operator
- Jim Hosler, Supervising Pipeline Safety Engineer, California State Fire Marshal representative (regulator of intrastate hazardous liquid pipelines)
The video from the May 31, 2018 forum is available from the following link:
https://youtu.be/5O8Sa_w2GVk
2015 Efforts
At the request of the Alamo Improvement Association, the Pipeline Safety Trust provided technical assistance to the Contra Costa County community throughout 2015, participating in two public education forums on petroleum pipeline safety in the region and developing a report on the same subject.
More details on the public education forums (held June 3 and 6, 2015) are available by viewing the video of the second forum, or viewing meeting documents and presentations (pdf files), as well as the final report:
- Report: Pipeline Safety in Alamo and Surrounding Areas within Contra Costa County, California
- Public Education Forum agenda
- Forum Presentation – Pipeline Safety Trust (Carl Weimer)
- Forum Presentation – CA Office of the State Fire Marshal (Bob Gorham)
- Forum Presentation – Kinder Morgan (Pete Murphy)
- Forum Presentation – Contra Costa County Public Works (Carrie Ricci)
The Alamo Improvement Association also has information on their website about this project. Additional resources are available from the Contra Costa County Hazardous Materials Program Ombudsman, Michael Kent, accessed through the Program’s website.