WEST READING, Pa.- The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission is now taking enforcement action against UGI following the deadly explosion at the R.M. Palmer factory in West Reading that killed seven workers.<\/p>\n
The complaint accuses the gas utility of multiple safety violations and is seeking the maximum civil penalty of nearly $2.6 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey released a complaint yesterday that quite frankly was unusual and highly damning,\u201d said Attorney Andrew Duffy.<\/p>\n
Duffy represents many of the victims and families impacted by the explosion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis complaint essentially says UGI, your inaptitude caused this explosion. You violated federal safety law,\u201d Duffy said.<\/p>\n
The explosion happened in March of 2023, when federal investigators say natural gas leaked from a former service line and ignited.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll they did that day was just show up for work\u2026 and then all of a sudden, there was a sense that there was a natural gas smell. And before anybody could get out, the entire building exploded,\u201d Duffy said.<\/p>\n
The complaint also outlines concerns about aging gas infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was an absolutely preventable event that never should have happened,\u201d Duffy said.<\/p>\n
UGI says it is reviewing the complaint and will continue cooperating with the investigation.<\/p>\n
The case will now move through the PUC\u2019s formal process, as civil lawsuits tied to the explosion continue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST READING, Pa.- The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission is now taking enforcement action against UGI following the deadly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[65514,65513,3891,65511,9962,65510,128,130,129,65512,15968,11413,707],"class_list":["post-143184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-andrew-duffy","tag-civil-penalty","tag-explosion","tag-natural-gas-leak","tag-pennsylvania-public-utility-commission","tag-r-m-palmer-factory","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-safety-violations","tag-ugi","tag-victims","tag-west-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}