Making things a little less shaky

PG&E pipeline in delta offers insurance against disaster for company, customers

McDonald Island, San Joaquin County — On this crop-covered island in the sweltering delta, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is building a $56.9 million insurance policy.

The utility is stringing a second pipeline beneath the cornfields and river channels to make sure that a disaster won’t cut it off from its main natural gas storage facility.


McDonald Island sits atop an underground reservoir packed with enough fuel to supply all PG&E customers for more than one month. Right now, only one pipeline connects the reservoir to the outside world. If it breaks in an earthquake or flood, the gas would be trapped. Buying replacement gas could cost up to $1 billion.

So on Friday, work crews slowly fed a 24-inch-wide steel tube into a hole in the black dirt. The new pipeline will dive 100 feet underground to pass beneath the Empire Cut river channel nearby, then emerge on another island to the south.

San Francisco Chronicle