Showing posts with label Station One. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Station One. Show all posts

Energy firm convicted in Walnut Creek pipeline blast that killed 5

By PETE BENNETT - Contra Costa Watch EMAIL
Phone: 510-460-5641
Posted: 10/24/2013

Reposted to Protect My Sons


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Energy firm convicted in Walnut Creek pipeline blast that killed 5

Published 4:00 am, Friday, September 21, 2007
  • Police officers on Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2004, cordon off the site of a Tuesday explosion in Walnut Creek, Calif. Two people remained missing Wednesday, after an underground fuel pipeline exploded when it was struck accidentally by a construction crew extending a water line. The two missing were part of a construction team that accidentally hit a fuel pipeline. (AP Photo/San Francisco Chronicle, Eric Luse) MAGS OUT MANDATORY CREDIT Metro#Metro#Chronicle#11/13/2004#ALL#5star##0422460631 Photo: ERIC LUSE
    Police officers on Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2004, cordon off the site of a Tuesday explosion in Walnut Creek, Calif. Two people remained missing Wednesday, after an underground fuel pipeline exploded when it was struck accidentally by a construction crew extending a water line. The two missing were part of a construction team that accidentally hit a fuel pipeline. (AP Photo/San Francisco Chronicle, Eric Luse) MAGS OUT MANDATORY CREDIT Metro#Metro#Chronicle#11/13/2004#ALL#5star##0422460631 Photo: ERIC LUSE

An energy company was convicted Friday of six felony counts and will pay $15 million in connection with a 2004 gasoline pipeline explosion in Walnut Creek that killed five construction workers and injured four others.
Attorneys for KMGP Services Co. Inc., a subsidiary of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, entered no-contest pleas before Superior Court Judge Terence Bruiniers in Martinez.
The company will pay a $10 million fine in the criminal case, involving violations of the state labor code, and $5 million to end a related civil prosecution, Deputy District AttorneyLon Wixson said.
"We're happy with it," said Wixson, who filed charges against the company Thursday after a lengthy investigation. "We think it's fair. We think it's appropriate."
Tom Bannigan, president of Kinder Morgan's products pipeline business, said in a statement, "We extend our deepest sympathies to the families and individuals affected by this tragic accident. While it can never make up for the losses associated with this incident, we hope that accepting our share of responsibility and reaching these settlements will help bring closure to this matter."
The families of the five men who were killed and others who were injured by the blast have reached separate civil settlements totaling at least $69 million with Kinder Morgan and other companies that were involved in the incident, including Mountain Cascade Inc. of Livermore, a contractor for the East Bay Municipal Utility District.
Only the subsidiary of Kinder Morgan, the nation's largest underground fuel shipper, was criminally charged.
The explosion occurred Nov. 9, 2004, when a Mountain Cascade backhoe operator was installing a water-district main near Newell Avenue and South Broadway and punctured a high-pressure Kinder Morgan pipeline.
The plea agreement signed by Kinder Morgan says the company was the "proximate cause of the puncture of the line and of the deaths and injuries that resulted from the incident." As part of the agreement, the company's employees must fully inspect its pipelines during excavation and conduct an audit of its training procedures.
Kinder Morgan had failed to mark a bend in the Walnut Creek line, according to state workplace safety regulator Cal/OSHA, which found the Houston company primarily at fault and fined it $140,000. The state fire marshal fined Kinder Morgan $500,000. The company has appealed both fines.
Killed in the blast were project foreman Tae Chin "Gene" Im, 47; Javier Ramos, 35; Israel Hernandez, 36; Victor Rodriguez, 26; and Miguel Reyes, 43. The fireball also seriously injured welders Jeremy Knox and Roger Paasch, pipe fitter Miguel Fuentes and crane operator Patrick Farley.
David "Max" Beach, the attorney for Reyes' family, said Friday that Reyes had been killed because the company "did not take safety seriously."
He said Reyes' relatives were grateful that the Kinder Morgan subsidiary had been prosecuted, but added, "It's impossible to say whether the resolution brings any measure of satisfaction to the Reyes family."
John Anton, an Oakland attorney who represented the families of Rodriguez and Hernandez, said, "Considering the misconduct, which was always egregious and is now criminal, and the loss of life that resulted, I can't say that I'm satisfied. I will say that Kinder Morgan, however reluctantly, stepped up to the plate and acknowledged, in both the civil and now the criminal litigation, the horrible blunders that its people made."
Last year, the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration's Office of Pipeline Safety and Kinder Morgan agreed that the company would provide system-wide safety upgrades in six Western states. The upgrades were expected to result in as much as $90 million worth of safety improvements.
The $5 million in the civil case will be divided among the county, a state and county prosecutors' fund for worker-safety investigations, the sheriff's office for its use in improving radio communications, the city of Walnut Creek and the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District.
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Limousine Fire - Walker at Tahoe Court

By PETE BENNETT - Contra Costa Watch EMAIL
Phone: 510-460-5641
Posted: 06/13/2013

Reposted to Protect My Sons

Arson Murder - Magalia / Paradise CA
Related: Arson / Arson
======================================================================

Around 2009 a Limousine operator suffered an arson fire to his vehicle.  I suppose one torched Limo wouldn't make the news but I can tell you that my truck fire never made it nor would you hear about Mike McIntryre dying under a bridge or that Todd Cambra or Marcus each were run over in Front of Trader Joes.  


Another day in Bucolic Walnut Creek where in order to make sure Neiman-Marcus gets built they beat up the petitioner against Nieman-Marcus in front of the Safeway where they said the attacker was mentally ill and couldn't be prosecuted so they let him go.  See this movie here called Catch and Release  

I will say things have changed at WCPD - when my guitar was stolen they drove me around but I suspect the clerk at Walnut Creek Starbucks took it as he left for the day.  Duncan and Main. 



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Doc's Pharmacy - Accident or Deliberate? Bacterial Meningitis

By PETE BENNETT - Contra Costa Watch EMAIL
Phone: 510-460-5641
Posted: 06/13/2013

Reposted to Protect My Sons
Bacterial Infections
Related: Arson / Bacterial
Bacterial

===============================================================
When Marilyn Scully arrived at her Concord home after work that day, she was shocked to see her sturdy 47-year-old husband clutching his head and screaming in pain.
Immediately, Scully called 911. As she followed the ambulance in the family pickup, she was sure about the culprit - her husband had just received a cortisone shot for his chronic back pain - yet she still expected to drive him back home that night.
But on May 30, 2001, less than 24 hours after his cortisone shot, George Stahl was dead.

Doctors at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek told Scully that her husband died from a burst blood vessel in his brain. Scully decided to donate Stahl's organs. Doctors were in for a shock:

====
In 2005 I was hit with a similar infection - I suspected foul play - in 2011 I brought this to the attention of Chief of Police of Walnut Creek - Chief Bryden - five weeks later the man in the police report handed over was killed.  Makes perfect sense to me.  
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