Broadway may reopen Wednesday, full opening contingent on solving leaking gasoline problem

But after a gasoline smell was detected at an adjacent AT&T vault, the intersection has been kept closed so the telecommunications company can perform the requisite work, Burlingame City Manager Lisa Goldman said. 

While it’s possible that roads will reopen sooner, Burlingame is hoping to “underpromise and overdeliver,” particularly given the unforeseen circumstances that extended the shutdown into this week, Goldman said. 

“This is one of those areas where we thought we would be reopening yesterday, and then there were unforeseen challenges,” she said. “Hopefully, they can continue doing the work they need to do to get people back on power and roads reopened.” 

As of Tuesday afternoon, Broadway was open from El Camino Real to Chula Vista Avenue. Chula Vista Avenue to California Drive, including the intersection, is still closed, and parts of California Drive south to Carmelita Avenue and north to Lincoln Avenue are also closed. 

PG&E still had about four to five hours of work to do as of late Tuesday afternoon, Burlingame Mayor Michael Brownrigg said, and confirmation that no gasoline vapors are found in other vaults is required before full power can be restored to the street. Currently, businesses and other PG&E customers along Broadway are on generator power. 

San Mateo County Environmental Health Services is investigating the cause of the leaked gasoline, how old it is and how it got there, said Preston Merchant, San Mateo County Health communications officer. 

The department is taking samples of the gasoline and sending it out for testing, he said. There isn’t currently a timeline on when those questions will be answered, but there’s been no evidence of an active leak in the area, Merchant said. 

In the 1990s, there were three active cases of fuel leaking from underground storage tanks in the area, which has been home to various gas stations over the years, Merchant said. Those cases were remediated from 2000-05. 

“We’re looking to determine whether or not the fuel we see now is historical, if it’s been left for a while,” he said. 

Brownrigg emphasized that the gasoline was not coming from PG&E, but another, third-party source. While its infrastructure is being affected by the gasoline, it has been working diligently with the city to solve the problem, he said. 

“Great credit to PG&E for bringing tremendous resources to bear right away in pumping out the vaults, figuring out what was going on … and bringing in [backup] generators, because they knew they weren’t going to repower this thing in a hurry,” he said. 

The petroleum contamination in the underground vaults was discovered during an investigation into a power outage along Broadway, which affected businesses and other PG&E customers along the street in the past week. 

John Kevranian, former president of Broadway’s Business Improvement District, said the lost revenue and spoiled product from those outages caused serious damages to local businesses, although the street is now operating on generator power. 

“I have power, but as a business owner, we’re devastated. It also killed our business this past whole week,” he said. 

Road closures have frustrated residents and traffic has been also affected by a concurrent El Camino Real tree removal and pavement improvement project underway, but Goldman said it’s necessary for public safety.

“It’s super inconvenient, but it’s about public safety,” Goldman said Monday. “We don’t want anything major … so we’re doing extra due diligence to make sure that doesn’t happen.”  

Because of ongoing rainfall, some eucalyptus trees had to be immediately removed as an immediate safety concern, Brownrigg said.

“When Caltrans has to remove some of the eucalyptus, they need to close the entire block due to the danger,” he said. “It was another matter of public safety, it was not an optional road closure.” 

Traffic control has included parking and police officers directing traffic at certain intersections at busy morning times.

The city sent out an update Tuesday evening emphasizing that there continues to be no immediate threat to residents or businesses and that drinking water is not impacted by the presence of fuel in soils and groundwater in this area.