Public Service Electric and Gas Co. has reached a $450,000 settlement with the family of a Teaneck man who died when his house exploded two years ago as was reported on YWN.

Richard Hass Z”L, 66, died on July 17, 2008, after natural gas filled his home on Hastings Street and ignited, leveling the house and damaging five other homes nearby.

The causes of the gas leak and its ignition remain mysteries. PSE&G, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities — the company’s regulator — and the family’s attorney refused to discuss the event in detail.

While the BPU initially said it could take six months to complete a report on the incident, the agency has yet to conclude its investigation more than two years later.

Jim Giuliano, director of the BPU’s division of reliability and security, said the agency is negotiating a settlement with PSE&G, a process he hopes to have completed by year’s end.

“It is complicated — there were a lot of issues at play. It did require an extensive amount of review,” Giuliano said. He would not say whether the BPU would seek to fine PSE&G or require the utility to take corrective action.

Kenneth Berkowitz, an attorney for Hass’s estate, declined to comment on the wrongful-death lawsuit he filed against PSE&G and its Newark-based parent company, Public Service Enterprise Group Inc., in August 2009, citing a confidentiality agreement.

An Oct. 22 letter by Berkowitz filed in Bergen County court files, however, notes the $450,000 settlement.

About $300,000 of the settlement will be divided among beneficiaries of Hass’s estate, and the rest will go toward paying legal fees, said Dan Genis of California, Hass’s half brother and administrator of his estate.

Hass had worked as a commercial painting contractor and then at home as a day trader. Hass had no children and was divorced, Genis said.

What led to the explosion — as well as what, if any, missteps there were on PSE&G’s part — remains unclear.

Residents along Hastings Street in Teaneck had reported smelling a “thick” natural gas odor about two weeks before the blast.

On July 5, 2008, about two weeks before the explosion, a PSE&G worker looked into the gas smell, but could not pinpoint the source, neighbors told The Record two years ago.

Then, on the day of the explosion, another PSE&G employee checked out reports of a gas leak two hours before the blast. PSE&G has said a technician spent 80 minutes sampling the air and drilling holes in the street to search for gas pockets.

Genis said it appeared PSE&G may have erred by not getting inside Hass’s home to test for gas levels.

“As far as I know … they never went into the house,” Genis said.

“The real negligence was not really pursuing the leak when [the smell] was so strong and everybody was complaining about it, not to evacuate the house or not to go in,” he added.

Ralph LaRossa, president and chief operating officer of the utility, said PSE&G employees “did a good job,” performing required tests and following procedures.

“We’re pretty confident they were all followed the way they should have been followed in that case,” LaRossa said Friday. “The open question that I think hasn’t been resolved by anybody yet is what was the source” of the leak.

PSE&G has maintained that the gas leak originated from within the house, and not from its pipelines.

(Source: North Jersey)