Utility to pay $143M in settlement
Firm, victims of Massachusetts gas blast reach agreement
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Columbia Gas of Massachusetts has agreed to pay $143 million to compensate residents and businesses in three Massachusetts communities that experienced a series of explosions and fires last year after a dramatic gas line mishap, what is likely to be the final major settlement with victims.
The money will go to residents and businesses in Lawrence, Andover and North Andover — communities just north of Boston — to help those who suffered losses in the aftermath of explosions that rocked the three communities on the late afternoon of Sept. 13, 2018. An over-pressurization of the area’s gas pipeline system, which the company was in the process of repairing, led gas to stream into area buildings, causing a series of explosions and dozens of fires.
One Lawrence teenager, Leonel Rondon, was killed when a chimney on his friend’s house was blasted off and landed on the car in which he was sitting. The company already has settled lawsuits with his family and the friend’s family for undisclosed amounts.
The crisis caused many homes to be uninhabitable while safety officials inspected gas connections and appliances in the days after the explosions. It affected approximately 10,000 homes and businesses.
This settlement, a con
solidation of class-action lawsuits, is meant to address those who were not physically harmed but were displaced or significantly affected by the fires and damage to heating systems, hot water heaters and natural gas appliances in their homes and businesses.
“We are fulfilling the commitments that were made from the very beginning,” Columbia Gas spokesman Dean Lieberman said Monday morning.
“Families suffered for months in the gripping cold. Businesses shuttered, and lives were upended,” Elizabeth Graham, co-lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement.
“To this day, the people most impacted by the explosions are not fully back on their feet, but we believe this settlement is the quickest and most just method to ensure that residents and businesses are made whole again.”
The $143 million settlement is still subject to court approval. In the meantime, victims can continue to file claims with the company, which already has paid out $108 million — including $36 million to businesses — on more than 25,000 claims. If the court accepts the settlement, claims will be handled by a settlement claims administrator, and residents and businesses will be eligible to file claims through an independent claims administrator process, Lieberman said.
“We view it as a very positive development,” Lieberman said. “It’s another step in a series of settlements, and it’s another important milestone as we fulfill the commitments.”
All told, Columbia Gas and its parent company NiSource expect to spend about $1 billion making repairs, system improvements and compensating victims in the aftermath of the incidents, Lieberman said.
“Today marks another important step forward, as we continue to fulfill our commitment to residents and businesses,” NiSource President Joe Hamrock said in a statement.
In a separate settlement reached in May, the company paid Lowell, Andover and North Andover $80 million, mainly for repaving roads that were torn up because of utility work.
Columbia Gas also has replaced or repaired 18,500 pieces of equipment — mostly heating and cooking appliances — since last fall. Lieberman said the utility is nearly done replacing more than 800 pieces of equipment that were repaired to get customers through the cold months but had not been replaced.
“I don’t think anything can ever be fair to a community where so many people lost family members, lost homes, lost livelihoods,” Republican Gov. Charlie Baker responded when asked Monday if he believed the settlement is fair.
Baker, however, added that victims of the disaster were well represented in negotiations with the utility, “and if they believe that was a deal worth signing, I’m going to side with them on that.”
The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates such incidents, has not yet filed its final report.
The agency issued four urgent safety recommendations to NiSource in November, and as of last week, the agency had closed two of the four and deemed the company’s actions acceptable to date for the other two, Lieberman said.
Those efforts are part of a larger push by NiSource to ensure the gas system’s safety, he said.
The company is spending $150 million to add monitors to its pipes to shut off the system in the case of major jumps or dips in pressure. In last year’s explosion, after contract workers for Columbia Gas replaced a centuryold pipe with a new one, they failed to realize that pressure sensors were still active in the removed section of pipe, according to a preliminary report from the safety board.
That led the system to think pressure was falling, so it automatically forced more and more gas into the region’s lines.
The company has also sped up its implementation of a comprehensive safety management system, similar to ones used in the aviation and nuclear power industries, to identify risks in the gas network early and take immediate action, Lieberman said.
The company established an independent quality review board, headed by former Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood.
“Taken together, the number of steps the company has taken are significant steps forward to prevent something similar from happening again,” Lieberman said.