Pacific Gas & Electric Co. critics say the company lied to state regulators in an application that exempted it from spending $2.5 million to improve the safety of a high-pressure gas pipeline below children’s sports fields due to be built this year in southwest Tracy.

The wall of the 36-inch wide natural gas pipeline that runs 4 feet below the ground is too weak, and the internal pressure is too strong to run beneath the Schulte Road Sports Park, ruled a state utilities engineer in 2004 using safety guidelines published by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Pipeline Safety.

But five California Public Utilities Commissioners granted PG & E a safety waiver that exempted it from reducing pipeline pressure or replacing or reinforcing the pipeline in December 2004. PG&E representatives told commission employees that the pipeline was safe and that the company had informed “the potentially affected parties” of its safety waiver application and no one had appealed against it.

Activist Carole Dominguez alleges the waiver was “fraudulently obtained” by PG&E, and has won a hearing before a San Francisco judge to fight the waiver.

PG&E’s attorneys in written testimony said the company notified the “potentially affected parties” of its waiver application during an April 2004 joint City Council and Parks Commission meeting, when the company explained its safety monitoring and education plan for the pipeline.

Under the safety plan, the pipes will be inspected at least six times a year, signs will be installed that list a 24-hour emergency hotline telephone number and a PG&E representative will supervise sports field construction work.

The word “waiver” did not appear in the meeting agenda, minutes or presentation materials, though the word “safety” appeared 13 times in a slide presentation by PG&E government affairs manager Emily Barnett.

PG&E spokeswoman Nicole Tam said last week that the company needed only to inform city officials of the 2004 waiver application because the city is the only potentially affected party, since it is the developer and the landowner. The land was, in fact, owned by the U.S. Department of Justice until fall 2006, when it was purchased by the city using a law passed by Congress and written by then-Rep. Richard Pombo, whose relatives own nearby land.

Dominguez said nearby landowners and parents of children who will play on the sports fields are also parties who are potentially affected by the waiver.

Attorneys for PG&E in written testimony said the company had no legal obligation in 2004 to tell the commission about a number of complaints that were submitted through the commission’s Web site and quoted in a newspaper article.

The waiver was granted under a provision of the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act, which was co-sponsored by Pombo and passed the House, 423-4, in 2002. It was touted as a law that would protect energy supplies, and the government at the time estimated it would spare the energy industry $1 billion worth of safety-related work over the coming 20 years “with no reduction in pipeline safety.”

The California Public Utilities Commission did away with the normal public comment period when the safety waiver was awarded, and no one complained after PG&E filed its application. The only public notification of the waiver application was in an agenda published by the commission before its December 2004 meeting.

PG&E officials have repeatedly told city officials the pipeline is safe. An environmental impact report prepared by consultants and city employees found the pipeline would create a “significant hazard,” but the report concluded that the site is safe for sports fields. The city’s Planning Commission previously rejected a 1999 San Joaquin Delta College application to build a campus there in part because of concern over the safety of the pipeline.

Dominguez also alleges PG&E exaggerated costs to ratepayers of safety monitoring work and that PG&E broke a requirement of the safety waiver when it failed to monitor construction work at the Schulte Road Antenna Farm.

According to PG&E’s attorneys, the company does not consider the removal and excavation of oil drums, fuel tanks, antennas and guy-wires to be “construction of the sports facility,” though it is described as construction work in city documents.

PG&E in 2004 said it needed the waiver because of the high demand for its natural gas. The highly processed, nonrenewable fuel burns more cleanly and more efficiently than gasoline.

Administrative Law Judge Myra Prestidge on Monday postponed a pre-hearing conference to discuss Dominguez’s complaint until May 21 because she was ill.

The commission’s Consumer Protection and Safety Division unsuccessfully tried to pressure Dominguez to drop her appeal during a conference call after the formal hearing was postponed.

Division attorney Edward Moldavsky told Dominguez he would like his division to solely lead an investigation into whether the pipeline is safe, but not into whether fraud occurred.

“The evidence that I have is that (the pipeline) is safe,” said Moldavsky, who during the conversation characterized Dominguez as a “lone ranger type.”

“You’re hurting yourself by taking the gloves off. … We’re the police, and we’re a little taken aback,” he said.

Moldavsky told Dominguez the appeal would waste taxpayer money and that Judge Prestidge is “very busy.”

Moldavsky told Dominguez he was first briefed on her appeal several weeks ago. He said he was not aware of all of Dominguez’s complaints to the commission and that he was not aware of all the pipelines that run below the planned fields.

A second natural gas pipeline was ruled safe by the engineer in 2004 using federal guidelines. A Chevron crude oil pipeline runs parallel to both gas pipelines.

Attorney Michael Boyd of Californians for Renewable Energy, which submitted testimony for the hearing, told Moldavsky during the post-hearing conversation, “You can’t have the police investigator investigating the police.”

According to a report by the U.S. National Transportation Board and testimony prepared for the postponed hearing by activist Bob Sarvey, a dozen people were killed when gas from a 30-inch underground gas pipeline exploded in August 2000 within 700 feet of their New Mexican campsite.

 To reach reporter John Upton, call 830-4274 or e-mail jupton@tracypress.com.