Thursday marked the one-year anniversary of a gas explosion in North Seattle’s Greenwood neighborhood. Around 2 am on March 9, 2016, a blast caused by a natural gas leak leveled three small businesses—Mr. Gyros, Neptune Coffee, and Quik Stop—and damaged several businesses near the intersection of 85th Street and Greenwood Avenue. One resident was even made homeless. That autumn, investigators with Washington’s Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) found that an abandoned and unsealed gas line once maintained by Puget Sound Energy (PSE) caused the disaster. Their report alleged PSE was in violation of 17 safety regulations and, if confirmed by UTC commissioners, could cost the corporation up to $3.2 million in penalties.

A year later, business owners are still recovering and fighting for PSE to address gas safety concerns in the community. A group of business owners, Seattle City Hall officials, Sierra Club representatives, and neighborhood residents gathered at the Taproot Theatre on Thursday to commemorate the anniversary.

“[PSE’s] negligence blew a hole in our home,” said David Giugliano, owner of G&O Family Cyclery.

Giugliano closed his G&O bike shop, which originally stood next door to Neptune Coffee, for about a month after the explosion. The cyclery eventually reopened for nearly nine months in a temporary location before they settled in a permanent home a block north from their old location.

“We’ve had almost no contact with Puget Sound Energy since the explosion a year ago,” he commented in an interview after the press event. “It feels like only recently they have had to come to terms with the fact that they’re going to have to respond and take some responsibility on some level.”

Chris Maykut, owner of Chaco Canyon Cafe, echoed Giugliano’s sentiment, saying it was only by luck that no one was killed or seriously injured in the blast.

“If you’re a CEO of a company, you really only have two things to do: increase your profits and continue to grow,” Maykut said during the press conference. “We need to tell PSE that that’s not acceptable in this case, that if they choose that route, we’ll come at them with everything we can legislatively and with our voices to say, ‘No, you need to make sure our communities are safe.’”

In an interview after the press event, Maykut said he counted himself as one of the luckier business owners affected by the blast. Although Chaco Canyon is situated across the street from where the explosion occurred and had its windows blown in and tables destroyed, with the help of volunteers, he said, the cafe was able to board up its windows and reopen the next day. The cafe was able to survive the last year because neighbors made the active decision to patronize Chaco Canyon and other businesses nearby.

Since the explosion, Maykut was able to work with his insurance company to make repairs and hasn’t yet decided whether he’ll file a claim for reimbursement from PSE. Despite this, Maykut said PSE officials’ hesitance to take responsibility for the blast is frustrating.

“It’s not to say that they’re all evil people or that they don’t give a shit about the community, it’s just how business works,” he explained. “If 30 people had died, what do you think would’ve happened this year? For PSE, other than getting completely reamed as a company, legislation would have come out. … There would’ve been action.”

During the press conference, PSE representatives stood at a pop-up tent in the Fred Meyer parking lot nearby, a move Giugliano described as a “public relations hash.” When reached for comment, PSE spokesman Andy Wappler said that meeting with the community that day was an opportunity to discuss safety.

“We really wanted, on this anniversary day when people might be thinking about natural gas, to take advantage of that … to make sure they knew the right safety steps either at home or a business,” he said.

In response to small business owners' fight to survive, State Representative Noel Frame—who lives in Greenwood and represents the neighborhood—proposed a bill that would create a mitigation fund to help neighborhood businesses and nonprofits affected by future gas explosions. Public testimony was heard yesterday in the House's Technology and Economic Development Committee.

In January, Seattle City Councilmember Mike O’Brien, whose district includes Greenwood, led a press conference to give local business owners an opportunity to voice their frustrations with PSE’s lack of accountability in responding to the explosion.

Since then, O’Brien said PSE has apologized for not being out in the community sooner and has made themselves available to work with business owners through the claims process. Some businesses have worked with their insurance carriers, who have, in turn, contacted PSE and are now in the claims process, he said.

“I’ve heard some encouraging things [from some business owners],” he said. “But until someone signs their name on the dotted line and cuts a check, it’s all kind of theoretical. I remain skeptical and encouraged at the same time.”

But there’s still work to be done, O’Brien continued.

“There’s this unresolved issue about how this could have happened and how to prevent it from happening again,” he said. “I’ve heard Puget Sound Energy has looked at all their [decommissioned] pipes and found that [the one in Greenwood] is the only one. I would really like to hear from the [state’s] utility commission that they’ve sent inspectors out and they think that [pipe] is the only one or that [they’ve] sent experts out and reviewed all their documents and that Puget Sound Energy has adequately met that need and people can rest. I haven’t heard that from the regulator yet.”

Amanda Maxwell, spokesperson for the state utility commission, said that since UTC concluded its investigation last autumn, the organization is in a legal hearing process with PSE, which could result in a settlement. Currently, there is a court hearing scheduled for July 6. Wappler, spokesman for PSE, would not comment on the settlement negotiations. He was, however, willing to discuss inspections on other gas lines.

“We know we have locations where we have retired pipe,” he said. “We are going to go out and check all those locations and make sure the retirements were done correctly and safely. We believe they were, but we want to double-check after this incident.”

PSE inspectors will be checking that the pipes were properly sealed off and above-ground equipment was removed, he said.

“We know where the pipes are, but it hasn’t been part of the process before to go back and verify that the work was done properly,” he said. “That’s going to be part of the new step. … Every two to three years, every location [has been] checked using methane detection equipment in a visual and hands-on inspection to make sure there isn’t any physical damage to the system.”

"While we can mitigate the potential damage from the explosiveness of natural gas, there is another danger," Councilmember O'Brien said during the press conference. "It is a fossil fuel and when it is burned, it releases carbon into the atmosphere that contributes to the catastrophic effects of climate change. When it is not burned and leaks into the atmosphere, it causes even worse effects on the atmosphere in the form of methane."

He continued: "Puget Sound Energy is considering expanding their use of natural gas for producing electricity on our electric grid. We have the power in our state to prevent that from happening. We need to ensure our electric grid is a clean, carbon-free, safe electric grid. We know it's possible because Seattle City Light has been producing 100 percent carbon-free, clean electricity for over 10 years. We know it's possible because Puget Sound Energy itself has been an early leader in renewable energy. ... We as a community can make sure we continue to decarbonize our electric grid by preventing new natural gas sources from coming on."

In a recent press release, environmental organization The Sierra Club wrote that PSE's long-term plans include expanding natural gas use to create "550 megawatts of new gas-fired electricity." When asked for comment, Wappler said that there "is no commitment to build a gas plant at this time."

"We've seen no indication that they will be straying from their commitment to gas," said Caleb Heeringa, deputy press secretary for the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign. "They're playing a semantics game if they say they haven't committed to build gas. All their long-term plans call for replacing all their retiring coal with gas."

During the press conference, Sierra Club organizer Robin Everett said that a new gas plant in Washington "means more pipelines going through our communities, [which have] devastating effects."

"PSE's corporate shareholders get all profits from building new, gas-fired power plants, but customers for PSE bear all the financial risks," she said. "When there's a tragedy, when something goes wrong, who is paying the bill?"