Southwest Gas warned of bin Laden threat

Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2001 | 9:04 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

WASHINGTON -- The FBI has warned energy companies that Osama bin Laden may have approved plans to attack North American natural gas pipelines and facilities if he's captured or killed, a warning that prompted a tightening of security.

Natural gas producers and pipeline companies continued to be on a high state of alert, industry executives said Monday, although they declined to discuss the latest warning, which was sent in a memo to industry security officials last week.

Southwest Gas Corp. spokesman Roger Buehrer said the company that serves Southern Nevada, as well as Arizona and California, received the alert last week from the American Petroleum Institute.

"We think that our gas lines are very secure," Buehrer said. "We have been on a heightened state of alert since Sept. 11."

Southwest Gas receives natural gas from three interstate pipelines, including a Williams company pipeline from Wyoming to California that passes through the western Las Vegas Valley. The other two pipelines go through Northern Arizona. The gas is distributed to local homes and businesses through other pipelines that ring the valley.

The company has a combined 21,351 miles of distribution pipelines and 2,311 miles of transmission pipelines in the three states it serves. In Clark County there are about 720 miles of transmission lines and 11,000 miles of lines that service neighborhoods. About 95 percent of the gas company's facilities are underground.

"We have increased patrolling of our facilities, and our field employees have been looking for vandalism," Buehrer said. "So far, we haven't found anything unusual."

Buehrer said the most recent time he recalled his company being put on alert was in the aftermath of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The extent of damage that could come from an attack on a Southwest Gas pipeline would depend on the location of the incident, he said.

"I'd like to reiterate that we have to be on much more heightened alert than ever before," Buehrer said. "Our best eyes and ears are our customers. If they see people working around gas facilities and don't see them wearing Southwest Gas uniforms or identification, they should call us."

Attorney General John Ashcroft confirmed the natural gas warning, though he expressed some doubt that attacks would be conditioned on bin Laden's capture or death.

"It didn't take anything specific to trigger the attacks on the World Trade Center or the Pentagon," said Ashcroft when asked about the alert at a news conference. Even so, "those are the kinds of reports which we take seriously."

The alert did not single out a specific target, but referred to natural gas supplies including the more than 260,000 miles of gas pipelines and hundreds of pumping stations and other facilities.

"We have received uncorroborated information that Osama bin Laden may have approved plans to attack natural gas supplies in the United States," said the memo, according to several industry sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"Such an attack would allegedly take place in the event that either bin Laden or Taliban leader Mullah Omar are either captured or killed," the alert continued.

The FBI alert said the information came "from a source of undetermined reliability" and that "no additional details on how such an attack would be carried out, or which facilities would be targeted" could be learned.

Sun reporter Steve Kanigher contributed to this report.