State finds
'probable violation' in gas blast
Saying it has reason to believe
NStar violated state and federal safety guidelines, the state's
utility regulator has issued the company a "notice of
probable violation" in a Hopkinton gas explosion last year
that killed two young girls.
The report released yesterday by
the state's Department of Telecommunications and Energy cited a
number of findings, including that NStar had no records indicating
it had tested service line segments for maximum operating
pressure...(more)
Parents
press ahead with suit vs. Nstar
A Hopkinton couple whose
two daughters died in a natural gas explosion last year at their
home said they ``just go through the motions'' of life since their
tragic loss.
``Life
just isn't the same,'' Heath Carey said at a news conference at
his lawyer's office yesterday...(more)
Report
hints NStar may be to blame
HOPKINTON -- NStar may have
violated state and federal regulations at a Main Street home prior
to an explosion last year that killed two young sisters, a state
regulatory agency said in a report released yesterday
The
140-page report, dated Nov. 6 but released yesterday by the
Department of Telecommunications and Energy, stops short of saying
the alleged violations caused the explosion that killed 4-year-old
Iris Carey and 5-year-old Violet Carey on July 24, 2002.
In the report, the DTE said NStar
had no records to demonstrate that the service line segments
installed in 1974 and 1979 were tested to set a maximum allowable
operating pressure, or MAOP.
Because of that, the report said
NStar may have violated a requirement that the line be tested at 1
1/2 times the MAOP.
In addition, NStar did not
monitor the steel service line in the basement of the building for
corrosion in the five-year period prior to the explosion. All
exposed lines are required by state law to be tested every three
years.
The report also states NStar did
not perform leakage surveys of its service lines, which are
required at least once a year...(more)
Parents still blame NStar for
fatal blast; utility disagrees
The parents of two girls who died
in a house explosion in Hopkinton last year said yesterday they
would continue to blame NStar for the alleged mistakes that killed
their daughters and left the family without a home.
The day after a state agency
released a report saying that the utility company might have
violated state and federal guidelines in connection with the July
24, 2002, explosion, Tara and Heath Carey said the findings
confirmed what they had believed all along about the blast that
killed their daughters, Iris, 4, and Violet, 5.
"We knew it was a gas
explosion," Tara Carey said at a news conference in their
lawyer's office in Boston. "Everyone could smell gas that
night. . . . For them to just keep denying, not admitting that it
was, has just been awful."...(more)
