Pipeline Safety & Regulations Regulations do NOT make a pipeline safe October 10, 2000 Arthur Caldicott, Cobble Hill
The pipeline industry has for many years enjoyed profits while all around us, pipelines have been leaking, corroding, exploding, and killing. Most of the time, the pipelines are built, monitored and operated according to regulation. In many cases, a pipeline operator will exceed the regulatory requirement.
This does not, however, make for a reliable or safe industry. Every couple of days, a natural gas pipeline incident occurs in North America. Every four days, someone is injured. Every seventeen days, someone dies. Since 1986, in the US there have been 3140 incidents, 1407 injuries, and 322 deaths from natural gas pipelines.(1)
Alberta's Energy Utilities Board reports 950 pipeline failure incidents in the year ending March 31, 2000, a 7% increase from the 885 failures of the previous year. A reportable incident is "the failure of the pipeline to contain the substance being transported."(4) 950 failures in one year equals 2.5 every day.
Natural gas pipelines are grouped into two categories. Transmission lines are the big ones that run from remote gas fields to urban centres. Distribution lines are the smaller ones that run down our streets and into our homes. There are just two differences that we are concerned with: when transmission lines explode, they explode bigger; whereas distribution lines, given their urban context, injure and kill more people. The transmission industry makes a big effort to avoid being associated with the injury rate of distribution lines. However, as urban areas have expanded into what was once countryside, in the last forty years, transmission lines are now more prevalent in populated areas, and the risk to humans increases accordingly.
The Georgia Strait Crossing (GSX) is a natural gas pipeline proposal by BC Hydro and Williams, a large US pipeline company, to bring natural gas from Sumas, across Washington State, the Strait of Georgia, and Cobble Hill on Vancouver Island. The GSX is a transmission line, a 41cm (16 inch) pipe running at the high margin of conventional pipe compression, at over 2100 pounds per square inch. The selected route for the GSX is within a few hundred metres of a huge gas storage facility in Cobble Hill, runs in close proximity to a number of roads and homes, and passes right through a schoolyard!
Regulations cover things like steel strength, wall-thickness, testing schedules. What the regulations cannot cover is the guy with the backhoe, the farmer on his tractor, the ship dragging anchor, the earthquake. Nearly 60% of transmission pipeline incidents, and 80% of distribution pipeline incidents, are caused by "outside forces" and "other" causes.(2)
The industry of course finds this convenient, because they can absolve themselves of responsibility for whatever occurs, without it actually getting in the way of their business or their profits.
What does an "outside force" look like in practice? In 1996 an area on the western slope of Sumas Mountain in Washington State washed away. A natural gas pipeline that ran across the slope, lost its support and broke. Fortunately, no-one was injured, although property damage was reported just short of $400,000. Was it avoidable? Could the operator, Northwest Pipeline Ltd, a Williams company, have known of the vulnerable slope? Might they have done more visual inspection; might they have done some precautionary shoring up of the site? All regulations were followed, mind you, but that's how these incidents happen: outside forces, outside the regulations.
In June of 1999, a pipeline broke in Bellingham Washington. The gas (liquid gas, not natural gas) pooled and exploded, killing two children. "Outside forces" were at fault, Olympic Pipeline Company claimed. Later it has been shown the rupture was the result of a number of contributing factors, some of which could have been avoided by more diligent monitoring, testing, and maintenance.
Since then, Washington State has been examining everything to do with pipelines to avoid more accidents of such tragic effect. One initiative was the Washington State Pipeline Inspection and Integrity Review. (3). The report summary states that
Most interstate operators in Washington are generally performing integrity assessment activities that extend beyond the regulatory requirements
There are two standard monitoring and testing procedures that pipeline companies apply to their pipes. "Pigs" are devices that are pushed through the pipe, examining it for corrosion and defects. "Hydrotesting" involves pressurized water under tightly controlled conditions. The Washington State review looked at these factors for the major pipeline operators in the state. Some companies had pigged and/or hydrotested all of their system within recent years. The Williams subsidiary, Northwest Pipeline, had inspected only 17% of their system since 1996, and had hydrotested only 11% of their pipe since 1990.
These are disturbing figures, despite the overall conclusions of the report. These results are clearly a reason for residents along the GSX route to be uneasy. Williams does not appear to be a company that has integrity and safety at the top of their corporate priorities. When asked if a compliance order is being considered against Williams/Northwest, the OPS stated that it would be necessary to file a "freedom-of-information" request to obtain that information.
New pipelines are designed to be controlled remotely. Williams is proposing to monitor and control the GSX from Salt Lake City. What happens, then, if the communications links fail, from the pipe to the control centre? How do technical staff then get to the pipe, underwater or on Vancouver Island, in an emergency? BC Ferries? Perhaps even by Fast Cat!
Let's walk through a pipeline incident, minute-by-minute. On April 15, 1996, a Trans Canada Pipeline (TCPL) pipe erupted on the southwestern edge of Winnipeg Manitoba, where the pipe goes under the La Salle River. The cause of the incident was later determined to be a fracture due to overhead slope movement: "outside forces", again, and beyond operator and regulatory control. Here are some entries from the official record: (5)
18:15 00min The pipe exploded. Local residents in the
vicinity
noted a loud noise and shaking walls. Several eye witnesses saw flying debris and a geyser of mud and water shooting up from the La Salle River, at a point where TCPL crosses the river.
18:17 02min The Winnipeg Emergency Centre (911) was advised of the
situation by a local resident
18:19 04min Several spectators arrived to observe the geyser of mud
and water
18:29 14min A local resident called the TCPL 24-hour emergency phone number. The call was re-routed to the Winnipeg Regional Control Centre, providing first notification to TCPL. While the resident was on the phone with the Winnipeg Regional Operations Controller (ROC), the escaping natural gas ignited, cutting power and phone services to the area surrounding the occurrence site. The resident immediately evacuated the house, because of the intense heat flux ensuing from the fireball. Three local eyewitnesses reported that the ignition of the natural gas appeared to start from a point near the top of the geyser of mud and water. At this time, a local Winnipeg television station was televising the events at the La Salle River during its regular newscast. Firefighters from the Winnipeg Fire Department observed the large fireball while en route to the scene.
18:35 20min TCPL's Calgary Gas Controller (Calgary Controller) was
advised of the occurrence by the ROC. However, at 1838, the Calgary Controller advised the ROC that the Calgary Gas Control Centre (Calgary Centre) was unable to detect the occurrence because of a telemetry outage originating east of Winnipeg.
18:45 30min The Calgary Controller instructed the ROC to isolate
Lines 100-1 and 100-2
18:46 31min A low pressure shut-off device automatically activated
on Line 100-2
18:56 41min An caller reported a large fireball south of Winnipeg on Highway 75
19:13 58min Still a small fire and a natural gas leak at the
occurrence site.
21:28 193min Three hours after the first indication of a fire and
explosion, the small, 600 mm residual flame at the occurrence site self-extinguished.
If this weren't so serious, it would be laughable. Is there any part of this that reflects well on the pipeline operator? That neighbours and passersby and television crews were on site before the pipeline operator knew there was a problem? That the remote monitoring system was not functioning? It took half an hour before the gas was shutoff, and even then it was by automatic mechanisms, before a manual shutdown could be effected.
The GSX is routed less than a kilometre from my house. In the story above, the fireball was observed forty minutes after the explosion, and ten minutes after the gas had been shutoff. Not likely that the guy in Salt Lake City, who will be monitoring the GSX, will see any fireballs from here. He's not likely to see anything at all. Or hear anything, either. The power goes out here so often that the clocks in the house almost never get entirely reset before it goes out again. At certain celebratory times of the year, like Christmas and New Years, the busier phone exchanges are completely tied up, and we can't call off-island. What confidence should we take in that?
Why should we have any confidence in the GSX or in Williams? The industry performance is dreadful, Williams' own track record in Washington is questionable, and local conditions are not favourable.
There's no catchy end to this story. Pipelines are not safe, and the Georgia Strait Crossing is still being aggressively promoted for our neighbourhoods. It's a disaster-in-waiting.
Notes
(1) The US Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) publishes comprehensive data about pipeline incidents in the United States. (http://ops.dot.gov/). Comparable information is not so easily obtained in Canada, so we can only project from the American experience and assume that Canadian incidents are proportionate. The totals given in the text are for transmission and distribution lines, from 1986 to July 31, 2000, taken from http://ops.dot.gov/stats/dist_sum.htm and http://ops.dot.gov/stats/tran_sum.htm.
(2) Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) at http://ops.dot.gov/stats.htm.
See any of the natural gas incident "by cause" tables.
(4) Alberta Energy Utilities Board (http://www.eub.gov.ab.ca/), Field
Surveillance Provincial Summaries, April 1, 1999 to March 31, 2000 , Section 5, Page 38 and following. Follow the links at the EUB site to "Access DOCS/Find EUB Documents" then "REPORTS", then select the appropriate Field Surveillance reports. The 1999-2000 report is also on SqWALK! at http://www.sqwalk.com/EUB_FIELDSUMMARIES_9904_0003.pdf Note that the numbers given here are for all pipelines, not just natural gas.
(5) Transportation Safety Board, 15 April 1996 - Pipeline Occurrence
Report Natural Gas Pipeline Rupture TransCanada PipeLines Limited Line 100-2, St. Norbert, Manitoba (http://www.tsb.gc.ca/ENG/reports/pipe/1996/p96h0012/ep96h0012.html
The particular incident described in the text was not carefully selected from the data available - it was simply the first available. There is no data available for the years forward from 1996. To repeat, information is not so easily obtained in Canada.