OLYMPIA – A leak from a corroded Puget Sound Energy pipeline caused a fatal natural gas explosion and fire at a Bellevue home last September, state investigators said Thursday.
Written testimony from the state Utilities and Transportation Commission’s Pipeline Safety Program said inspectors found a hole in the gas line near the home’s foundation within hours of the explosion.
The steel pipe was in the ground for 19 years before corrosion protection was installed, an expert hired by the pipeline safety program reported. An electrical device intended to repel corrosion in steel gas pipes had been wired incorrectly, investigators said.
Frances Schmitz, 68, died three weeks after the Sept. 2 explosion.
Commission staff members have recommended that PSE review all areas with coated steel pipe installed more than five years before the use of corrosion protection.
Staff members also recommended that PSE conduct annual leak-detection surveys, and suggested a $125,000 penalty for the incorrect wiring, but said that was not the primary cause of the leak.
Associated Press
Seattle: Woman, 51, charged in stabbing
A 51-year-old woman has been charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing of her married boyfriend after he told her he was ending their 15-year relationship.
The charge was filed Wednesday in King County Superior Court against Nai Wang Saeteurn, 51, who was arrested early Saturday morning in the death of Kao Vang Saeturn, 46, after their children called 911.
Saeteurn, who was being held with bail set at $750,000 pending arraignment Aug. 1, lived with her three sons by Saeturn, and he lived with his wife and their children, according to documents filed by prosecutors.
One of the unmarried couple’s teenage sons told police he awoke around 3 a.m. to find his mother sharpening a large kitchen knife, saw her carrying a rope, bolt cutters and weights about half an hour later, and then heard his father scream, “Oh, help me! She’s stabbing me!”
He said he broke down the door to his mother’s bedroom, saw his father bleeding and got his two brothers to help him hold and restrain his mother when she tried to flee, prosecutors wrote.
Associated Press
Kent: Driver charged in fatal rollover accident
A 20-year-old man died when a sport utility vehicle overturned while doing doughnuts, or tight circles while the tires spin, and the driver has been charged with vehicular homicide.
The charge was filed Wednesday against Matthew Brian Ellis, 22, of Kent, whose record includes a number of driving offenses and who was described by King County prosecutors as intoxicated when the accident occurred. Bail was set at $30,000 pending arraignment Aug. 2.
Christopher M. Frederick, 20, was sitting in the window of Ellis’ 1980 Chevrolet Blazer, his legs inside and his upper body outside as he hung onto the roof, when the vehicle overturned early Saturday in a variety store parking lot northeast of Auburn near Highway 18, according to documents filed in King County Superior Court.
The SUV landed on top of Frederick, who died at the scene.
Associated Press
Oregon: Respected landscape architect dies
Portland resident Robert Murase, who was one of the nation’s most respected landscape architects, died Tuesday in a Seattle hospital after complications from a heart attack. He was 66.
Murase’s stamp can be found in the gardens at the Oregon Convention Center, the Garden of Remembrance in downtown Seattle, Esther Short Park in Vancouver and the Astoria Waterfront Redevelopment. He created the settings for the earliest corporate campuses of Microsoft in Redmond, Nike in Beaverton and Amgen in Seattle.
Internationally, it was one of his earliest designs – of a garden for the Myodo Kyo Kai Buddhist Temple in Japan – that in 1975 earned him an American Society of Landscape Architects Honor Award.
Since then, he has designed landscapes for the Grand Canyon transit center, the courtyard of the Japanese American Museum in Los Angeles, the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway in Wisconsin and the Sumitomo Museum in Kyoto, Japan.
Associated Press
Dead fish discovered along Klamath River
Thousands of dead fish have surfaced on a seven-mile stretch of the Klamath River after a week of hot weather and poor water conditions.
Among the dead are endangered sucker fish, but most of the dead fish are nonthreatened tui chubs and fathead minnows, federal officials with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said.
Highs in the region have hovered in the 90s since July 14, and water in the Klamath River was 82 degrees on Monday afternoon.
Suckers can tolerate 75-degree water for quite some time, but it still harms their health, said Roger Smith, fisheries biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
When temperatures go up, the water quality goes down because oxygen levels are lowered by decaying algae, Smith said.
Associated Press
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