Following a six-month investigation, the Alaska Dept. of Labor and Workforce Development has issued a total of 24 citations, with associated fines of $882,000, to three companies on a power-plant expansion project in Anchorage. The inquiry found that a pressure-relief valve had been removed from a steam piping system, which was placed into service without any other safeguards present. Two days later, an event occurred that  caused sudden high pressures and violent shaking of the system, threatening life safety and damage to equipment, the agency concluded.

The incident occurred during start-up and commissioning of Anchorage Municipal Light and Power’s 120-MW George M. Sullivan plant 2A after 28 months of construction to replace six aging simple-cycle, natural-gas turbines with a combined-cycle configuration. The utility asked Universal Energy LLC, the start-up operator, to shut down the system to prevent a catastrophic failure, but the operator delayed shut-down, causing ML&P to evacuate its employees until the area could be deemed safe, the investigation found.