This Week in Natural Gas Leaks and Explosions — Jan. 3, 2012
Jan 3rd, 2012 | By fjgallagher | Category: Lead Articles, Natural Gas Explosions, Natural Gas LeaksNaturalGasWatch.org may have taken some time off for the holiday, but natural gas leaks and natural gas explosions certainly didn’t, so let’s get right to it.
A massive natural gas explosion in Estill County, Kentucky, is reportedly still burning.
Authorities continue to investigate the cause of the blast, which occurred at a pipeline owned and operated by the Columbia Gulf Transmission, a so-called sister company of Kentucky’s Columbia Gas. Both companies are subsidiaries of NiSource Gas Transmission & Storage, of Houston, Texas.
No one was injured in the blast. Estill County Judge Executive Wallace Taylor said the fact that no one was killed by the explosion was a matter of dumb luck.
“If this had to happen, it probably happened in one of the better places in our community as far as the distance away from a lot of residences,” Taylor told the Lexington, Kentucky, Herald-Leader. ”If it had been another half-mile either way, it probably would have impacted a lot more people and been a lot more devastating.”
High school students were evacuated in Charleston, South Carolina, this morning and sent home from school early after school officials received reports of a strong smell of natural gas in the area. Workers from South Carolina Gas & Electric are trying to pinpoint the source of the leak, according to media reports of the incident.
Firefighters evacuated a neighborhood in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on Monday after gas crews responded to a report of a natural gas odor and detected a potentially explosive amount of natural gas in the air, according to a media report. UGI officials later attributed the leak to corrosion in an 8-inch gas line.
PG&E announced on Friday that the company had found nearly two dozen gas leaks in the San Francisco Bay Area town of Pittsburg, California, including one that had the potential to explode and cause serious damage to life and property.
According to a story in the San Francisco Chronicle:
On Dec. 21, a PG&E gas mapping worker discovered that 16 gas distribution system maps, known as plat maps, were “inadvertently not included in the leak survey schedule,” meaning 13.83 miles of distribution line and connections to 1,242 customers had never been inspected for leaks. The misplaced maps cover areas of the system as old as 1992 and as new as 2008.
At the same time, PG&E also disclosed that they had violated federal law by failing to inspect the pipelines every five years.
The disclosures represent the latest in a long string of embarrassing admissions made to federal and state regulators by the company after a massive explosion in a PG&E pipeline killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes in San Bruno, California, in September 2010.
Residents of a Casper, Wyoming, neighborhood were forced from their homes on the evening of Thursday, Dec. 29, after a large and potentially dangerous natural gas leak was reported in the area, according to a report in the Casper Star-Tribune. A SourceGas spokesperson said he did not know how old the pipelines in the area of the leak were, or if there had been leaks reported in the area before Thursday’s incident.
A neighborhood in the town of Turtle, Wisconsin was evacuated on Sunday, Jan. 1, after a home reportedly filled with natural gas attributed to a cracked valve on a natural gas-powered clothes dryer, according to a media report.
From the Beloit Daily News:
One of the home’s inhabitants had attempted to enter the home, but immediately called the fire department upon smelling a strong gas odor. Turtle Fire Department Chief Tim Huffman said it was a good thing the department was immediately called because the home was at explosive levels of natural gas. Huffman said any time a structure reaches 5-17 percent of natural gas in the air, it’s an explosive levels. The department called Wisconsin Power and Light and the gas was shut off and windows were opened to ventilate the home. The odor was so strong firefighters smelled it as soon as they drove onto the property.
And, as always, this round-up of reports does not include those natural gas leaks or explosions that are attributed to the actions of construction or excavation crews puncturing or severing natural gas pipelines during the course of their work. Were we to include those items, which occur with astonishing regularity, this feature would be far, far too long for even the most dedicated reader to finish.
Special Bonus Content: Fracking and Earthquakes — the links are stronger than you think!
Finally, although not necessarily related to a natural gas leak or explosion, it is worth noting that the State of Ohio ordered closed several so-called “injection wells” after a spate of earthquakes, including one that registered 4.0 on the Richter Scale, occurred there on Dec. 24 and Dec. 25.
The Wall Street Journal reported that injection wells are used to dispose of waste water left over from hydraulic fracturing sites, aka “tracking,” as it has come to be called in the parlance of our times. Fracking involves blasting tens of thousands of gallons of water, sand and toxic chemicals deep underground to break apart layers of rock to release natural gas trapped within shale rock formations.
To put it charitably, there is an ongoing debate that the practice can cause seismic activities, contaminate drinking water and contribute to increased air pollution, although the natural gas industry has long denied these claims.
Nonetheless, the State of Arkansas banned injection wells earlier this year after experiencing a slew of earthquakes and researchers at Southern Methodist University reported a “plausible” link between injection wells and increased seismic activity in the Dallas/Fort Worth area in March 2010.
This notion, that the gas leak was due to “corrosion” is heinous brutal disinformation. To place blame on products of nature, corrosion, rather than on the bureaucrats or maintenance people who are supposed to keep up these lines, is nauseating to say the least. When I was in the Navy working on sonar equipment, we had “checks” of the system assigned, that we’d be tasked to either daily, weekly or monthly, depending on the pressure placed on the item to be checked, we’d operate valves or check lines and sign off on the integrity of systems. If it turned out a tech was flubbing his checks and his system blew up due poor maintenance practice, OBVIOUSLY THAT SAILOR who misreported the status of the integrity of the system they were assigned, would be held responsible. This is outrageous, that gas lines are left to corrode until they leak and suffocate people or cause an explosion or fire or sicken people, apparently without any PERSON being responsible for maintaining the system. That speaks to top down systemic corruption, that the people who designed the system to not be checkable or didn’t assign anybody to do checks, are who is FULLY RESPONSIBLE. After this 1 liner to blame the gas leak on “corrosion” there should have been an explanation as to why corrosion is being allowed to destroy gas systems in America from coast to coast, it’s about 10 new gas leaks EVERY DAY and the rate is accelerating. THEN the murderous douche bags who engineered this system should be hauled into court, prosecuted and jailed worth all the people they’ve murdered by their flagrant murderous engineering of such a brutally flawed design and implementation AND all the politicians that bought all this shoddy work should similarly be prosecuted, if their knowing complicity can not be proven, they should be prosecuted on negligence charges for accepting positions of responsibility that they were unqualified to hold yet took anyway and took cash from tax paying constituents while they’re apparently so idiotic to allow nuke power plants with pipes that run through the fkn mud under the plant. So, the engineers, the politicians, the corporate executives that operate these murderous monstrosities of industry and utilities, ALL placed in jail for their crimes against humanity and their traitorous treachery against The People of the USA.
I guess you’re totally blameless in all this because you don’t now, never have, and never will use electricity. I guess your computer is solar powered. What do you think fuels the generation of electricity for your home, the Innternet, and everything else? Maintaining infrastructure costs MONEY and if you and the tea party lunatic fringe think less government will result in MORE money being spent on maintenance, then you pretty much deserve what you get.
Everything political is a dying system waiting to collapse.Usually throughout history the end is preceeded by war in the region brought on by neglect to the small things like hiring your doper brother or cousin or friend to watch a very dangerous potentially life threatening system’s infrustructure maintenance.Most of that happens because people trust those who are close to them and share their own values of play before work. Because things are built much better today than 40 years ago or further back especially, it could be a 100 times worse. But the implications are still the same. No trust and very little societal values on the whole.A fault not of the tea party which would eventually bring back old time values, but of the liberal left who believe in no values at all except what immediately benefits them in the shortest amount of time. Most of those people are big government believers such as yourself believe it or not. Government is meant for one thing and one thing only. That is the protection of the people and their values acquired over time such as borders to protect resource exploitation,and the right to individual life,liberty and as much freedom as possible among consenting adults. Something that the constitutional makers of this country tried to put down in words that were very simple to understand. Unfortunately the majority of people are just too dumb to read and interpret common sense. Also religions are easily pressured on a young persons physic to influence him or her to accept what seems to be the norm without an open mind.
I sympathize with the Indian of this USA country. Had they known they would have hunted the European to extinction way back in the 15th century like animals.Instead the Indian welcomed them and even traded with them and taught them how to survive in their land. How badly mistaken can a people be who take for granted a friendly jesture with a handshake. But it happened and here we are listening to socialists tell us how bad the tea party represents the true freedom of a country who started right and ended in distruction of its own principals.
When I hear about people having to leave their homes due to these types of things, it makes you wonder if it is worth it for them. I wish they would take more precautions to avoid leaks and explosions.