Despite pledge, faulty gas lines remain

After reading all these stories of explosions caused by natural gas lines going to residences, it amazes me that individuals still try to tell us of the “advantages” of these pipelines.  First of all, we would never see the infrastructure built in our rural areas to bring natural gas to our homes, and secondly, who would want it?!

http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/investigates/lakewood-family-still-waiting-for-answers-on-gas-explosion/50856215

LAKEWOOD — Nearly six weeks ago, a gas explosion rocked a home in Dallas’ Lakewood neighborhood. Since then, residents have been given scant details about what happened, and what dangers still exist.

For nearly a decade, WFAA has investigated gas line failures caused by compression couplings. Our stories have shown that shifting soil conditions can cause them to pop apart, leak gas, and blow up homes.

As a result of our stories, the gas company pledged to remove them all. But have they? Where are they now?

In 2007, Channel 8 began documenting the violent aftermath of compression coupling failures – homes reduced to splinters and people dead or in the hospital.

Regulators with the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates gas lines, were forced to rewrite the rules, requiring that “all joints on steel and plastic pipe below ground must be welded or designed and installed to resist pullout.”

Yet, line failures keep happening.

On March 2, 2015, a house exploded in the 9400 block of Eloise Street in southeast Dallas. Two occupants are injured but survive. An investigation reveals the culprit – a pipe pullout on yet another compression coupling.

Despite the new state rule, the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates gas lines, has neither cited nor fined Atmos Energy, which owns and maintains the lines.

A 2010 pledge by Atmos that “we will simply replace all of the old couplings in accordance with the Railroad Commission directive” has since been removed from Atmos’ website. You can read an archived version here.

Megan Anderson is just thankful no one was killed when her Lakewood kitchen exploded six weeks ago.

“All of the debris blasted out this way and thank God those chairs were there because it blocked it from hitting my kids,” she said.

After the explosion, Facebook boiled over with concerned neighbors demanding answers. Atmos officials say they found and repaired a leak on the gas main in the alley. But since the explosion, Megan’s husband Jeremy Anderson said Atmos has refused to provide them with any specific information.

“I’ve been told from the very beginning that ‘Every house leaks, it’s not a big deal … it’s no more risky than driving your car on the highway,’” Jeremy Anderson said. “I’m sorry but my car did not blow up … my house did.”

Anderson says an Atmos worker told him leaks were found up and down the alley behind his house.

Atmos tells News 8 it replaced the gas main in the alley, but has declined our repeated requests for details about the cause and extent of the leak.

But WFAA has obtained leak detection surveys submitted to the state that shows tens of thousands of leaks all across the Atmos Mid-Texas system dating back to 2009, including two reported leaks on Haverford Road, which is where the Andersons live.

Curious where gas leaks have been reported near you? Click here for access to WFAA’s interactive database.

But gas line leaks are so common, state regulators at the Texas Railroad Commission only require the worst leaks, known as Grade 1 leaks, be repaired right away. Grade 2 leaks can leak for six months. Grade 3 leaks – for three years.

“These rules are so vague that anyone could do anything they want to,” said Don Deaver, a pipeline expert and an outspoken critic of the Texas Railroad Commission.

“The whole process makes you wonder, what are the priorities of the Railroad Commission?” Deaver said. “Where does public health really stack up?”

Today, more than a month after the explosion, the Anderson’s yard is still so contaminated with gas, Atmos is paying for them to live in an apartment. Atmos says it could be weeks before they pump all the gas out of the ground.

Anderson says a gas leak this bad should have been repaired long before an explosion – an explosion he’s thankful wasn’t a lot worse.

“I mean what does it take?” Anderson said. “Another badly burned seven year old, or another child killed? Another woman burned from head to toe? When is Atmos really going to step in and fix the problem?”

OKCFD: House explosion caused by natural gas

http://www.koco.com/news/okcfd-crews-re/38101130

OKLAHOMA CITY —A model house exploded Saturday afternoon near Sara Road, officials said.

The explosion was reported at 10832 NW 32nd Terrace. The home was under construction and was completely destroyed, fire officials said.

Fire officials said the explosion was caused by natural gas.

“It’s pretty extensive, one house for sure is totally obliterated,” said Cathy Hayes, district chief with the Oklahoma City Fire Department.

A home salesperson went to the home Saturday, opened the garage door, smelled gas and left. He was reporting the smell when the house exploded. Firefighters said he had only taken five steps away from the home before the explosion.

“The gentleman that works across the street for the model homes went across to check on the sprinkler system, and when he went to open the garage door, he smelt the gas, and when we walked away, it exploded,” Hayes said.

The man is OK, officials said. No injuries were reported, but the sales person was examined by medical personnel at the scene.

Two adjacent homes suffered heavy damage, and three other homes had some damage. A person was inside one of the adjacent homes, but that person was not injured, officials said.

Police are investigating the possibility of a gas stove being stolen, causing the home to fill with gas.

“Natural gas was involved but it looks like that a possible appliance was stolen out of one of the model homes,” Hayes said. “As it’s pulled away from the wall, it disconnects from the piping that comes into the appliance and basically fills the house up with gas.”

Fire officials estimated damage to all six homes to be valued at $647,000.

Natural gas disasters around the nation raise questions in Milford

http://www.pikecountycourier.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20160218/NEWS01/160219952/-1/news01/Natural-gas-disasters-around-the-nation-raise-questions-in-Milford

MILFORD TOWNSHIP — Could the Los Angeles natural gas leak happen here?

Milford’s compressor station is undergoing a major expansion to handle the massive volume of fracked gas coming from the Marcellus Shale fields to the west. What are the risks locally of an environmental catastrophe like the one in Los Angeles, where natural gas gushed continually into the atmosphere for four months and forced the evacuation of thousands of residents?

The natural gas facilities in Milford and Los Angeles are different in important ways. The leak in Los Angeles was fed by gas from a large underground storage facility. By contrast, the Columbia Gas compressor station on Firetower Road does not store gas but is rather a junction point for three gas lines. The gas transported by these lines is compressed under high pressure and sent on its way, to New Jersey and beyond.

But the Milford station, like all industrial facilities, is subject to malfunction and failure, even if the consequences are not as dire as they are in Los Angeles. In the case of an accident in Milford, methane and other dangerous air pollutants could issue forth — and there’s no clear evacuation route or emergency management plan yet in place.

Opponents say the station will pollute even without a major malfunction. The Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, which opposes the deep-drilling method of hydrofracking for natural gas that has overtaken much of central Pennsylvania, recently conducted a baseline test at the Milford site so that it will be able to track emissions increases when the station is up and running.

Working on a plan

Currently, there’s no exit route north of the compressor station. Firetower Road eventually runs into a locked gate. From there, the road runs though state game land. A road that once connected Milford with Pond Eddy has long been closed.

Pike County Emergency Management knows about the lack of an emergency plan and is working on getting one, said Director Tim Knapp.

Because the site is in Milford Township, its zoning official, Bob DiLorenzo, is in charge of coordinating the plan. He said he’s just received from Columbia Gas an outline of the actions they’ll take in case of a local emergency. The next step is to meet with all local representatives, including Pike County Emergency Management Services.

DiLorenzo said he’s been trying to get the old road to Pond Eddy reopened, but the county and town say it’s too long a stretch to fix. And while the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection says it has no problem with the road through state game lands being used for evacuation, it has not yet responded with the necessary permit.

“I’m hoping to get Shohola and Westfall together on this to pay for it since Pond Eddy, Pa., is partly in both,” said DiLorenzo.

Columbia Gas did not return calls for a comment.

Scott Gabriel Knowles wrote a 2011 book on industrial disasters published by Pennsylvania University Press titled “The Disaster Experts: Mastering Risk in Modern America.” But he couldn’t offer much insight into the possibility of a natural gas disaster in his home state.

“Unfortunately it’s outside of my realm of expertise,” he wrote in an email.

Meanwhile, Firetower Road residents are advised to stay indoors in case of an emergency leak, and wait for direction from firefighters and other emergency personnel, DiLorenzo said.

Emissions already a problem

Experts and local officials say the chance of a local disaster on the scale of the Los Angeles leak is slim since gas isn’t stored in Milford. But activist Alex Lotorto, a leader of the environmental group that tried to stop the Milford expansion, said, “The total amount of methane and other gases that escape the gas pipes in Northeast Pennsylvania area is probably the same as in LA every day,” although dispersed over a much larger area. “All pipes and joints leak and eventually can break, causing explosions and massive emissions.”

Opponents of the station say emissions are particularly likely during “blowouts,” when excess gas is released into the atmosphere. Lotorto’s group recently said the gas could be injected back to the pipes, eliminating both air pollution and noise, major causes of concern for nearby residents.

Last month, a judge dismissed the appeal of Columbia Gas and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to dismiss the case brought by Stop the Milford Compression Station Expansion, saying that Columbia Gas didn’t follow state environmental law mandating that the best available technology — electricity rather than combustion — be used to prevent pollution.

Government action

The leak in Los Angeles has prompted federal action on gas pipeline and storage regulations, calling for air monitoring for methane, mercaptans, benzene and hydrogen sulfide, and the use of infrared cameras and aircraft to determine whether methane is escaping.

In Pennsylvania, DEP Secretary John Quigley said recently new legislation is being finalized to better regulate gas and oil permitting, water and waste handling, and old wells.

Lotorto and other opponents of the compressor station say Milford’s zoning and planning boards should have had the final say in the site’s land use. He said Governor Tom Wolf is not keeping his campaign promise on this point.

Economics may also determine how much the natural gas industry will continue to grow in Pennsylvania and other producing states. Currently, oil and natural gas prices have fallen so low, wells in some places are being closed because they are no longer profitable.

As Fossil Fuel Industry Staggers, a Massive Gas Pipeline Project Endures in Texas

The oil and gas industry is in a state of free fall. With prices for both commodities lower then they have been in years, oil companies are cutting jobs and many major drilling projects across the United States have ground to a virtual standstill.

Unlike the US, countries around the globe whose political apparatuses are not heavily funded by the fossil fuel industry are actively moving away from fossil fuels. With the mounting and unarguable impacts of anthropogenic climate disruption escalating daily, the oil and gas industry now resembles embattled dinosaurs desperately groping for their survival.

Meanwhile, vocal protest against oil and gas companies is only growing.

Recently, a coalition of 165 organizations – including environmental, faith and political groups and businesses – signed a massive petition calling on the Government Accountability Office to launch a full-scale investigation of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the agency that, while it has never declined a permit request by a company to build a gas pipeline, theoretically regulates them.

Even in oil and gas friendly Texas, there is a growing outcry about the egregious abuse of landowners rights’ carried out by the company behind a new gas pipeline.

That pipeline, the Trans-Pecos high-pressure gas pipeline project that will transport natural gas from Far West Texas into Mexico, is moving forward nonetheless.

The proposed 143-mile Trans-Pecos pipeline would deliver up to 1.4 billion cubic feet of Permian Basin natural gas into Mexico each day. The pipeline consortium is led by the richest man in Mexico, Carlos Slim, and Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), headed by CEO Kelcy Warren, who Forbes says is worth $6.7 billion, and is being built for the Mexican Federal Electricity Commission.

ETP, however, is on rocky terrain financially: It recently experienced its largest one-day drop in stock price since 2006 when its value lost 15 percent and reached a seven-year low.

“The [industry] downturn has led investors to worry that pipeline stocks can’t raise dividends, finance growth, and pay their debt after values collapsed and spending outpaced revenue,” The Dallas Morning News reports.

How can the CEO of a company that recently lost 15 percent of its total value in a single day – and dropped to its lowest value in a decade – think this new pipeline will turn a major profit given that the gas industry is experiencing such a dramatic downturn in the United States?

The answer lies in Japan, where wholesale gas prices are roughly 10 times higher than they are in the United States. The gas in the pipeline is not intended for Mexico, as both ETP and Carlos Slim would like the public to believe. It is in fact intended to be shipped overseas, which of course also means that their use of eminent domain (the right of a government or its agent to expropriate private property for public use) to seize land in Texas has been and continues to be illegal.

The principle financial backers of the project include the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation in Japan, according to reports from within the oil and gas industry itself.

With Japan continuing to reel from the ongoing effects of the Fukushima disaster, that country is moving to shut down all of its nuclear power and is currently replacing that energy with natural gas, thus driving gas prices dramatically in both Japan and other parts of Asia.

Hence, while the domestic market for natural gas is in a state of collapse, ETP’s CEO Kelcy Warren sees huge potential profits for his company abroad.

This is likely why in December 2015, Warren said, “You really make money during the dark times when other people are struggling.”

---

So when I met Gibson, who had worked for decades engineering oil and gas infrastructure, I had my reservations about his motives for speaking out against the Trans-Pecos pipeline project. But when we sat down for an interview for a story I was writing about it, my suspicions melted away. He began talking, sincerely and earnestly, about the facts.

For example, he pointed out that after companies have installed a pipeline underground, they then try to cover up and “restore” the construction damage – but this is not possible.

“That process is maybe, at best, marginally successful over a long time period,” Gibson told Truthout. “But out here, in this fragile ecosystem, there is little chance for restoration.”

He was frank about the likelihood of something going wrong with a pipeline such as the Trans-Pecos.

“It’s likely there will be an explosion – not if, but when,” Gibson stated flatly. “At a random place along the line, the risk, let’s say, is X. At a compressor station, the risk is 10X, or greater, because it has people working on it, rotating machinery, electrical systems and vehicular traffic; concomitant risk is there. And when something goes wrong, it tends to be catastrophic.”

There is a lot more info in this article – take some time & read it all:  http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34820-as-fossil-fuel-industry-staggers-a-massive-gas-pipeline-project-endures-in-texas

5 years after losing his family in Allentown gas blast, every day is a fight for Manuel Cruz

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/allentown/mc-allentown-gas-explosion-victims-five-years-later-20160207-story.html

ALLENTOWN — When Manuel Cruz sees the face of his 2-year-old boy, smiling and laughing, it helps him endure everything he’s lost — a grandson, a daughter and a mother.

Cruz went through unimaginable grief and recurring nightmares after losing his entire family in the 2011 natural gas explosion that rocked his former Allentown neighborhood. His family, friends, church and therapists helped him through the roughest of times, but the birth of his son two years ago was his best medicine.

“I thank God every day for everything he has given me,” Cruz said recently from his home in southern Georgia. “My baby has helped me so much in my recovery. Lo quiero muchisimo (I love him so much).”

The Feb. 9, 2011, explosion and fire leveled eight row homes on the 500 block of North 13th Street, damaged dozens of others in the surrounding neighborhood and killed five people. Cruz lost his 16-year-old daughter, Katherine; 4-month-old grandson, Matthew Manuel Vega; and 69-year-old mother, Ofelia Ben. He also lost the home he was proud to call his own.

The couple next door — William Hall, 79, and his wife, Beatrice, 74 — also died.

“They were good, caring and loving people,” their son, Mark, told The Morning Call in 2013.

Like Cruz, Mark Hall has experienced tremendous loss. Two years after the death of his parents, he lost his wife to cancer.

He did not return a call for comment last week.

Cruz and Hall filed wrongful death lawsuits against UGI, which supplies gas to much of the Lehigh Valley. The company traced the explosion to an 83-year-old cast-iron pipe that cracked, sending gas into the Halls’ home. A spark, perhaps from a light switch or an appliance, ignited the gas.

Mark Hall resolved his lawsuit for an undisclosed amount. Cruz, who was at work as a truck driver at the time of the blast, settled on behalf of his grandson, but the lawsuit on behalf of his daughter and mother remain active, court records show.

As a result of the explosion, the state Public Utility Commission ordered UGI to replace all of its cast-iron pipes by 2027. In 2012, the company launched a $1.2 billion replacement program and says it is on track to meet the deadline.

Five years after the blast, the block looks much the same as it did after crews hauled away the rubble. In an empty lot where homes once stood, five white crosses bear the names of those who died.

The blast changed the street, the neighborhood and even those who survived it.

Of the five families who lost their homes to the raging fire, one of them moved out of the state and the others relocated to other parts of the Lehigh Valley. Some didn’t want to talk about it, saying it’s tough to rehash that night.

Antonio Arroyo, who lost his rented home at 530 N. 13th St., said he plans to move to Florida once his daughter gets her nursing degree.

He, his wife, his daughter and grandchild moved from place to place after the explosion, using money from a settlement the surviving residents reached with UGI to pay for meals and clothing for his family. The stress of the explosion and subsequent legal battles led to health problems that included high blood pressure and a heart attack, he said.

“I was inside my house during the explosion and it almost felt like I was sitting inside a speaker when the bass hits,” said Arroyo, who still lives in Allentown. “All you can feel is the air and the impact.”

He has experienced gas scares since then, a whiff of the pungent odor prompting a call to UGI. It worries him.

“I am just afraid that I may have to experience something like that again,” he said.

While the city has no plans to commemorate the five-year anniversary of the blast, Arroyo will recognize it as he always does — by visiting the empty lot and placing flowers on each of the crosses.

Don O’Shall, who lived at 536 N. 13th St., will be thinking of the old neighborhood that day too. O’Shall and his adult son Matt haven’t lived in Allentown since 2011, when they used donations and settlement money to buy a fixer-upper in Florida — in an area without natural gas lines.

“Our settlement was too small to really afford to live in the Lehigh Valley,” said O’Shall, a locksmith who retired from Lehigh University.

He said Matt has had a tougher time than he did in recovering from the trauma.

“He was deeply affected by it, and less prepared by life for dealing with such an event,” O’Shall said. “Myself, I take life as it comes.”

It has come with mixed blessings in the past five years as the O’Shalls persevere in making a new home in Florida.

“I miss our neighborhood, our friends and the opportunities afforded by life in the Lehigh Valley that are not available here,” he said. “But I adjust.”

Fateful night

The explosion happened about 10:45 on a frigid February night, waking people even in parts of the suburbs. It forced dozens from their homes, including senior citizens who were evacuated from a nearby apartment building. Fire officials said they had not received any reports of gas leaks in the area.

The blast lit up the night sky as the fire burned most of the night. By morning, the scene looked surreal as water from fire hoses turned to ice, encasing cars and trees.

Cruz, who was hauling a load to New York, was unaware of the devastation as he slept in a hotel room. He was 42 at the time and thankful for the perfect life he was living after emigrating from the Dominican Republic. He became a U.S. citizen, found a good-paying job he enjoyed and bought his first home. He had put much labor into restoring the row home. Two weeks earlier, he placed ceramic tiles in the kitchen, and after a coat of paint in the living room, he would be finished with the renovations.

Katherine, his only child, had given birth to his grandson four months earlier. And Cruz’s mother moved in to help care for the baby so Katherine could continue with her education. His ex-wife, Ana Paulino, lived in the neighborhood too, providing Katherine and the baby with ample support when Cruz was out of town.

Cruz remembers the cold that morning, the icicles dangling from power lines when he returned to the neighborhood after receiving the dreadful call from a neighbor. When the temperature drops, it triggers that memory.

“I am always thinking of them,” Cruz said. “The weather is one of the reminders.”

There are others — birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, “days that you are with the family,” he said.

After the explosion, he moved in with relatives in Montgomery County and spent long hours driving a truck for a meat processing plant. His time off was spent at church and in therapy. He tried working longer hours to keep himself busy, but that just left him alone for hours in the truck, with only the memories of his lost family to keep him company.

Cruz said he later realized that getting back in the truck was the wrong move for his recovery. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t relax.

“It made me very sleepy,” he said. “I was up very early and drove long hours. I didn’t want to put my life in jeopardy.”

A therapist suggested a career change and possibly moving out of the state that brought him such sadness. Two years ago, he made a move, first to spend time with a sister in Puerto Rico and then to Georgia, where he settled with his new wife, his 6-year-old stepdaughter and baby Manuel.

Cruz now works in property management, a less stressful job that allows him to socialize and gives him more time with his family, with his energetic son.

“El niño es mi vida (That baby is my life),” Cruz said.

His stepdaughter, he said, could pass as Katherine’s twin.

“There are certain situations where I think I am looking at my daughter when she was younger,” he said.

He’s recovering, but he said it’s been a long process.

“For my therapy, every day is a lucha,” he said — a fight.

Cruz remains close to Paulino, Katherine’s mother, and will probably mark the anniversary with her. She is the only one who shares his anguish, he said.

“She is the only person who understands the pain that I am going through.”

ONG blames ‘poor workmanship’ for NW OKC home explosion

http://newsok.com/article/5476143

Oklahoma Natural Gas blamed “poor workmanship” as the cause of a Jan. 2 pipeline explosion that obliterated a northwest Oklahoma City home, damaged dozens of others and left one man severely injured.

In an incident report filed late Monday afternoon with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the utility cited a three-and-a-half-inch crack in a polyethylene pipe and a lack fusion in a weld seam as the cause of the blast at 12505 Whispering Hollow Drive.

The explosion caused an estimated $509,443 in property damage, including about $5,000 to ONG infrastructure.

An ONG spokeswoman said Monday the utility would have no additional comment.

Henrietta house explosion caused by severed gas line

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2016/02/02/reports-house-explosion-henrietta/79686210/

Henrietta Fire Lt. Tom Hayes, one of the first three firefighters on the scene, said he could smell natural gas and could hear the hissing sound from a leak. The decision was made immediately to contact RG&E. Hayes said he began to walk Eugene Upshaw eastward up the street as a safety precaution toward a car where Upshaw’s wife, Louise, was waiting. They were only about 40 feet away — standing in the road outside the home — when the house blew up.

“The front of the structure was clear,” Hayes said. “And as I was faced to the left there, I heard the boom and could kind of feel it. It wasn’t a loud boom. It was kind of muffled in my ears. I think most of the blast went out the rear of the structure, because that’s where most of the debris was.”

The explosion occurred within two minutes of firefighters arriving on scene.

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isSlim=1

2 more victims of Elizabeth house explosion die from injuries

http://www.nj.com/union/index.ssf/2016/01/2_more_victims_of_elizabeth_house_explosion_die_fr.html#incart_most_shared-union

ELIZABETH — Two more victims of the Nov. 11 house explosion on Magnolia Avenue have died of their injuries, making a total of four people killed in the incident.

St. Barnabas Hospital confirmed today that Tyquan Henderson, 11, died yesterday. His sister Tavasha Henderson, 36, died on Jan. 5, a spokeswoman said.

Another sister, Kimiyha Henderson, 26, also died from her injuries on Dec. 3.

Femi Brown, 24, another resident of the multi-family home, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Elizabeth Mayor Christian Bollwage said previously that the ground floor of the three-story home had been illegally converted into a living unit with gas and electric, and that the explosion was caused by gas.

Garbage truck explodes in fireball, rips hole in nearby house

http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2016/01/garbage_truck_explosion_damages_hamilton_house.html

HAMILTON — A garbage truck exploded after catching fire on a street in Hamilton Tuesday and blasted a hole in the front of a nearby house, though no injuries were immediately reported.

A total of four houses were damaged in the 2 p.m. explosion.

One the truck’s four natural gas tanks exploded in the fire and rocketed into the front of Doris Pattley’s home on Fitzrandolph Street, just off Lalor Street, officials said.

Hamilton firefighters Leonard Pope and Steve Lykes had just pulled Pattley from the rear of her home when the truck exploded, officials said.

The explosion shot debris into a second home across from Pattley’s, tearing a hole in the roof.

Two other houses suffered broken windows and melted siding.

Pattley said she was in her living room when the truck exploded. “And I ran into the kitchen.”

“I saw big pieces of steel and stuff like that come flying into my kitchen,” Pattley said.

She decided to retreat to the rear of her property, running into the backyard, where the firefighters helped her over a fence to safety.

Cindy Partyka, who lives about five houses away, was collecting her garbage cans when she realized the truck was on fire after seeing the driver backing up to her house.

She grabbed her cellphone and recorded the fire and explosion. “I was amazed at how it exploded,” she said.

Hamilton police Capt. James Stevens said the truck’s two operators reported smoke coming into the truck’s cab and they evacuated the vehicle and reported the fire. Neither was injured.

“The tank that exploded was like a missile,” Stevens said. Four homes will be temporarily uninhabitable, he said.

Hill: Problems with Spectra Energy pipeline

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinion/20160123/hill-problems-with-spectra-energy-pipeline

Posted Jan. 23, 2016 at 7:02 PM

If you missed it Spectra Energy had a major natural gas pipeline leak in Medway on Jan. 5, 2016 that required an evacuation of local homeowners. Fortunately, most of us don’t smoke and there was no resulting explosion. If you Google “natural gas pipeline accidents” you will learn that this is common and that gas companies have terrible safety records. As a matter of fact, USA Today dated August, 2014, reported that nationwide there have been 1700 significant gas leaks in the prior four years, resulting in 135 deaths, 600 injuries, and about $2 billion in damages. According to a 2013 document prepared by Sen. Ed Markey, gas distribution companies in 2011 reported releasing 69 billion cubic feet of NG into the atmosphere, almost enough to meet the state of Maine’s gas needs for a year. Nationwide consumers paid $20 billion for unaccounted gas between 2000 and 2011. In Massachusetts, these companies have replaced just 4 percent of leak-prone pipes while billing us for between $640 million and $1.5 billion for unaccounted gas during the same time period. This is methane, a greenhouse gas, that, when leaked, is worse than burning coal.

In the fall, I was one of the lucky homeowners who received a letter and a brochure letting me know that I live in the “pipeline incinerator zone.” After living in my Franklin home for 26 years, this was news to me. I learned that although I can’t see the power line corridor my house must be within 1,000 feet of the 53-year-old 24-inch pipeline.The letter starts with, “Dear Neighbor,” (the author’s address is Westwood), “You have received this brochure because you live or work near one of the Spectra Energy natural gas pipelines…The enclosed pipeline safety brochure explains more about what to do when planning to evacuate, how to recognize a pipeline leak, and what to do in an emergency and how to contact us.”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I have time for “planning” and I don’t think it’s my job to walk the line looking for blow holes. Now Spectra Energy is proposing to increase safety issues by building another high-pressure pipeline 21.2 miles long, passing through 10 towns from Milford to Stoughton by homes, schools and businesses.

Furthermore, we will be expected to pay for it with a tariff on our utility bills. Secondly, given that there are only about 40 peak days each year, the remaining gas will be exported for Spectra’s profit. It’s like putting a six-lane highway through Martha’s Vineyard for the 4th of July.

JAMES F. HILL

Franklin