PG&E's time-consuming manual valves & history of negligence

The fight for public power has been going on for about 100 years and the record in favor of public power is made by private profit PG&E's deadly disasters. The San Bruno explosion took so long to stop because PG&E was using manual valves instead of automatic, which means it took 40 minutes to shut off the valves instead of 10 minutes. The history of disasters on the part of PG&E which makes billions of dollars in profits annually and pays its chief executive $10.6 million annually is horrific.

The California legislature is just now introducing legislation to require automatic valves. For the valve story, see
"San Bruno blast probe focuses on shut-off valves"
Kevin Fagan,Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writers
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/15/MNCK1FE09A.DTL

For more on the $10.6 million dollar annual salary to PG&E's corporate executive and its waste of $46 million on a June 2010 ballot initiative Prop 16 that fortunately failed to make it more difficult to hold PG&E accountable, see
http://pgandeballotinitiativefactsheet.blogspot.com/2010/03/bad-timing-darbees-10559-million.html

The San Francisco Bay Guardian has been promoting public power since its inception in 1966, complaining rightly that PG&E is in violation of the 1913 Raker Act which mandates public power in all of San Francisco, not just for city electric buses and in goverment buildings. The Bay Guardian's 9/15/10 editorial highlights the many horrors of PG&E and the lack of such problems on the part of public power which by definition has far more accountability. That editorial may be found at:
http://www.sfbg.com/2010/09/14/pges-deadly-failures
Here are more Bay Guardian stories on the deadly disasters of PG&E:
http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2010/09/13/pges-tragically-misplaced-priorities-challenged
http://www.sfbayguardian.com/politics/2010/09/10/pges-history-blowups

The text of the Raker Act may be found at
http://www.mid.org/about/100-years/raker_act.htm

According to the Washington Independent, there are only 94 federal pipeline inspectors for the nation's 2.3 million miles of pipelines. That means these private profit greedy rackets are inspecting themselves! For the full story, see:
"Given Natural Gas’ Dangers, Worries About Pipeline Regulation and Oversight Abound
Federal Agency with Oversight Over Pipelines Lacks Mandate to Inspect All Pipelines"
by Andrew Restuccia, 8/10/10 at
http://washingtonindependent.com/94210/given-natural-gas-dangers-worries-about-pipeline-regulation-and-oversight-abound

TURN, The Utility Reform Network, is a watchdog organization exposing PG&E's crimes. See
http://www.turn.org/article.php?list=type&type=172

NOW IS THE HOUR FOR PUBLIC POWER; ABOLISH PG&E!