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SFPUC reports San Andreas Pipeline No. 2 main break; crews protected customers while inspecting damage
Summary
A 54-inch riveted-steel leak on the San Andreas Pipeline No. 2 near San Bruno forced crews to throttle flow and allow controlled leakage to maintain pressure; staff said customers remained supplied and an inspection to plan repairs was underway.
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission was briefed on a water main break in San Bruno involving San Andreas Pipeline No. 2, a 54-inch riveted-steel regional transmission pipeline.
Steve Ritchie, assistant general manager for water, said crews discovered the leak at about 9:30 p.m. the previous night near the Harry Tracy Water Treatment Plant and immediately throttled the line to keep system pressure and avoid customer outages. To maintain service while protecting downstream supplies, the utility worked with North Coast County Water District (Pacifica), the city of San Bruno and other local agencies to establish workarounds; by about noon crews had implemented measures allowing the dewatering of the site for inspection. “We hope to have that inspection complete, in the next hour or 2, so we know how to go about repair of the pipe and have a timeline by which we think we can fix it,” Ritchie said.
Ritchie described the pipe as an older, riveted steel main that had not been replaced as part of previous system upgrades. He said the leak occurred in a geographically favorable location that spared buildings and other structures from damage. Staff estimated several million gallons were lost but did not provide a precise volume on the record.
Ritchie also reported on drought conditions: Hetch Hetchy storage remained above 90 percent and the city’s per-capita residential usage was low (about 41 gallons per person per day in May), placing San Francisco among the lowest users in the Bay Area. He described a leak-notification pilot using automated meter data that sent postcards to customers with continuous overnight consumption; roughly 75 percent fixed problems after notification, and staff said investigations of persistent cases were underway.
The Commission did not vote on emergency funding at the meeting; Ritchie said he would attend the San Bruno City Council meeting that evening to brief local officials and would return to the Commission with a repair timeline.
