Oh Arch it gets better, this article is a bit dated but some concerns raised are worth noting.
Fatal explosion puts company's past violations in spotlight
Dayton Daily News
www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/09/14/...
By Tom Beyerlein
Staff Writer
Sunday, September 14, 2008
It sounded like the roar of a jet engine as the torrent of highly pressurized natural gas rushed out of the ruptured pipeline, stirring up a dust storm that choked the air. Then came a fireball that could be seen from 30 miles away, with temperatures reaching 3,000 degrees. When the blaze finally subsided, one witness said, the work site near Cheyenne, Wyo., looked like the surface of the moon.
Near the burnt husk of a bulldozer lay the charred body of Bobby Ray Owens, his arms raised to his face in a futile defensive posture.
"He was just vaporized," said Robert Painter, a Houston lawyer who represented Owens' survivors in a civil lawsuit. "It was like Hiroshima. This is what they're trying to bring into your backyard."
Owens, 52, of Louisiana, was operating a bulldozer for a subcontractor on the Rockies Express Pipeline outside Cheyenne about 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2006, when his ripper blade struck an existing pipeline, causing a rupture and explosion. He had no way of knowing there was another pipeline there: Nobody put up yellow warning flags.
"You could not have asked for a better person as a friend," said Owens' former girlfriend, Maggie Martin of Blythe, Calif. "I never knew what love was until I met him."
The owner of the pipeline that exploded, El Paso Corp., settled a lawsuit filed by Owens' survivors alleging that El Paso failed to properly stake the pipeline's route. Owens' family is still suing Rockies Express, or REX, claiming it also bears responsibility for failing to ensure a safe workplace. REX officials declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
Pipeline-related deaths and injuries aren't rare. Since 1986, 65 people have died from incidents involving transmission lines like the REX pipeline, and another 356 people died in distribution line accidents.
All told, those accidents caused more than 1,700 injuries and an estimated $1.9 billion in property damage, according to the Transportation Department's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
Owens was killed during construction of REX West, the first half of the interstate pipeline that will soon cut through Ohio. Two months after Owens' death, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission threatened to shut the project down if REX didn't improve its "poor compliance record" involving construction activity outside the approved work area.
REX admitted that in January 2007 it instructed the same subcontractor that hired Owens to work in a severe snowstorm "in an effort to meet in-service deadlines." The snow was so deep, the crews couldn't see its work space boundaries and wandered off the right of way. "In hindsight, it may have been more prudent to suspend construction until the weather improved," REX told FERC in a letter.
"That one document says REX understands one thing: Getting that pipeline working and getting the gas moving so the money can start flowing," Painter said. "Bobby Owens' death didn't make them seem to even notice. The human life factor was just irrelevant to them."
REX officials say they do their best to ensure safety for workers in the inherently dangerous pipeline construction business. Once the pipeline is in the ground, it is constantly monitored for changes in pressure that could indicate a breach and automatically shuts off. There are field personnel on hand to deal with problems.
"There are multiple levels of protection on a pipeline like this," said REX spokesman Allen Fore. "We want to put in a pipeline that's going to be around for many, many years and is going to deliver a much-needed commodity to consumers."
But REX's majority owner, Kinder Morgan, in recent years has been "sort of the poster child for pipeline problems," said Carl Weimer, executive director for the Pipeline Safety Trust, a fuel transportation safety advocacy group formed after a 1999 Bellingham, Wash., pipeline explosion that killed a fisherman and two 10-year-old boys.
Among those problems:
• In July 2002, a Kinder Morgan gasoline pipeline ruptured in Tucson, Ariz., shooting 10,000 gallons of gas 50 feet skyward. Fortune magazine reported that the subsequent repairs shut the line down for two weeks, causing shortages, lines at the pump and prices of up to $4.96 a gallon.
• In November 2004, an explosion of a Kinder Morgan gasoline pipeline in Walnut Creek, Calif., killed five workers and severely burned four others in the deadliest such explosion since 1983. The pipeline, which wasn't properly marked as a hazard, was near a high school and a block away from downtown. Last October, a Kinder Morgan subsidiary pleaded no contest to six felony charges and was fined $15 million in the incident.
• Kinder Morgan had so many problems with its West Coast liquified natural gas operations that PHMSA ordered the company to take a host of corrective actions in 2005. The company entered into a consent agreement the next year which "shall not constitute or be construed as an admission of liability."
• In June 2007, PHMSA cited Kinder Morgan for violating its own procedures for establishing the distance between a natural gas pipeline and a "high consequence area" like a school or hospital, resulting in distances being too close. PHMSA also said Kinder Morgan didn't always evaluate nearby pipeline segments when "significant corrosion" was found in pipe inside a high consequence area. Kinder Morgan denied the allegations. The case is still unresolved.
• In July 2007, a Kinder Morgan pipeline in Burnaby, British Columbia, was ruptured by a work crew, unleashing 200,000 liters of crude oil into a suburban neighborhood. City officials say Kinder Morgan provided inaccurate maps of the pipeline, didn't inspect it before the accident and delayed in shutting it off, charges the company denies.
Additionally, a federal judge last month fined a Kinder Morgan subsidiary $240,000 for a felony violation of ocean dumping laws. A company supervisor in 2003 paid a sea captain to dump 160 metric tons of potassium chloride into the Pacific Ocean, the Justice Department said. A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agent said, "It's hard to imagine a clearer violation of the Ocean Dumping Act. Intentionally using the ocean as a garbage can ... is not only morally wrong, it's a crime."
The REX West project also was clouded by a serious injury on Oct. 25, 2007, when inexperienced boom operators dropped a 240-foot-long section of 42-inch pipe weighing 68,000 pounds onto foreman Brian Hawkins near Hiawatha, Kan., critically injuring him. Hawkins lost his left leg and suffered a crushed pelvis and other injuries.
The Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued a $5,600 fine against REX West subcontractor Latex Construction Co. of suburban Atlanta for failing to use properly trained personnel. Fore said Latex isn't being used for REX East.
The Dayton Daily News reported in May that several pipeline inspectors resigned from REX West, saying they were threatened by Latex workers and supervisors.
After investigating an inspector's complaint, PHMSA found that Latex crews buried some concrete river weights in the ground instead of using them to secure pipeline in waterways. Latex owner William Honey said the incident didn't compromise safety.
Once pipeline is buried, it's usually safe, Weimer said, and most studies show that a pipeline doesn't lower surrounding property values. But "the blast zone around the pipeline is going to be huge, so you don't want to put housing near it. The chances of a pipeline blowing up in somebody's yard are really miniscule, but if it does happen, the outcome is going to be really bad."
Compressor stations, like the one planned for REX in Monroe near Interstate 75, carry the same risks for explosions as the pipeline. They also emit formaldehyde which may be dangerous for those nearby, Weimer said.
Monroe suffered a pipeline tragedy unrelated to REX in 2005, when electrical sparks set off leaking propane at a Texas Eastern plant there. The skeletal remains of a worker, 52-year-old Kollette Meyer, were found at the blast scene.
"Pipeline explosions are a definite concern," said Nolan Moser of the Ohio Environmental Council. "Ohio's a growing state. It's one thing to have a pipeline in a rural area, but this pipeline is going straight through central Ohio where we have our population massed."
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Who exactly is in charge of regulating this aging infrastructure?
