ONEIDA, N.Y. — National Grid (NYSE: NGG) has agreed to a $1 million settlement with the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) that would resolve all alleged violations committed during a natural-gas explosion in Oneida in September 2023.
The PSC’s decision is based on staff’s investigation into the incident, the organization said in its Thursday announcement. The incident happened at 532 W. Elm St. in Oneida.
Under the terms of the settlement agreement, National Grid shareholders will pay $1 million for enhanced safety measures and training to prevent similar incidents in the future.
“The Commission takes very seriously its role of ensuring the public’s safety,” Rory Christian, chairman of the New York State Public Service Commission, said in the announcement. “This gas explosion demonstrates that we will hold utility shareholders’ fully accountable for violations through enforcement actions to protect the public.”
CNYBJ contacted National Grid for a reaction to this settlement agreement, but a spokesman didn’t immediately respond.
Incident details
Early on Sept. 9, 2023, an individual rammed a stolen vehicle into a residential home located at 532 West Elm St. Oneida, the PSC said in describing the incident.
The vehicle struck the home’s outside gas meter, completely severing the shut-off valve at the gas meter.
The damage to the gas meter produced an above-ground natural-gas leak. Emergency 911 dispatchers contacted National Grid for a field response to the incident. Responding law enforcement and fire departments evacuated multiple adjacent homes.
A responding National Grid employee made the determination that they could not stop the blowing gas into the residence, so they called National Grid dispatch for a specialized gas operations unit. This employee did not, however, call for an electric-operations crew to turn off the power to the residence, nor did they take action to cut the power with available tools, the PSC said.
After about three hours had elapsed while National Grid crews were preparing their equipment and personnel, the residence “violently exploded, completely destroying the structure,” but no one was injured.
The PSC staff’s investigation determined that the dispatched National Grid employee, as a first responder, “took no affirmative act to shut off electrical service to the residence, and therefore apparently failed to remove potential sources of ignition.” The National Grid employee “further apparently failed to call for additional assistance to shut off electrical power to a residence that was filling with combustible natural gas for approximately three hours.”
The investigation also found that National Grid policies and procedures “apparently do not contain sufficiently detailed protocols” for disconnecting electrical service during a natural-gas emergency, per the PSC.
PSC staff interviewed the National Grid dispatch supervisor, discovering that he “apparently did not report the explosion incident to the Department of Public Service in a timely fashion.”