California May Be Riddled With Poorly Mapped Underground Fuel Pipelines

[GWJ_CAS]

Mistakes over hazardous liquid
pipe locations pose threat

By Steve Johnson sjohnson@mercurynews.com

Posted: 07/26/2011 04:12:57 PM PDT

Updated: 07/26/2011 10:33:01 PM PDT

While the deadly San Bruno explosion highlighted
the potential hazards of PG&E's natural gas lines,
another enormous system of pipes -- carrying jet
fuel and other hazardous liquids under Bay Area
neighborhoods -- poses a danger that could be just
as catastrophic.

That's because many people, including emergency
responders, aren't sure where the private companies
that own those pipes have buried them.

When a Walnut Creek construction crew's backhoe
bit into an underground gasoline main in 2004, the
fireball that resulted left five people dead and four
others badly burned. The workers didn't know the
pipe was there. Seven years later, the same thing
could happen again, said Luke Ellis, an attorney
who represented the family of Tae Chin Im, who was
killed in the blast.

"There are a lot of lines where people don't know
they are near their schools or homes or hospitals,"
Ellis said. "You hit one of these things and you can
have a catastrophic event."

Even local government officials don't always know
the precise whereabouts of hazardous liquid
pipelines. The California State Fire Marshal's Office
fielded numerous calls from fire departments
seeking to learn those locations after the Sept. 9 San
Bruno natural gas disaster, which killed eight
people and destroyed 38 homes.

Vital information dated

"These calls caused some concern" because a 1988
law requires hazardous liquid pipeline owners

to give local officials maps of their pipe networks,
the fire marshal noted in a report in May. It
discovered many fire departments "had outdated
maps and old contact lists" or hadn't distributed
more recent information to all their employees.
The number of leaks in California involving such
hazardous liquids as gasoline, jet fuel, crude oil
and diesel fuel has dropped from nearly 50 in 1994
to fewer than five annually in recent years,
according to the Fire Marshal's Office, which
oversees the lines. State officials say that's largely
because companies have improved how they inspect
and maintain their lines.

Moreover, many people think moving hazardous
liquid by pipes is safer than by trucks, an argument
Wickland Pipelines made last year in winning
approval to install a jet fuel line through North San
Jose to the airport. Wickland said its pipe would
eliminate 76 daily trips by trucks on busy city
streets.

Nonetheless, many people remain confused about
the precise location of such lines.

The U.S. Department of Transportation reported that
excavation problems from 2005 to 2009 resulted in
71 "significant" accidents involving hazardous
liquid pipelines nationwide, meaning they caused
death or major injury, evacuations or highway
closures. But critics say that understates the
problem.

A federally sponsored study by the industry group
Common Ground Alliance counted 320 excavation
complications involving hazardous liquid pipelines
in 2009 alone, the year for which the most recent
data is available.

Accidents involving such pipes are especially
worrisome because they can be hard to contain.
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"The liquid has the ability to rupture and flow for a
long distance before it ignites," said Carl Weimer of
the Pipeline Safety Trust, which was formed after a
Bellingham, Wash., gasoline pipe, previously
damaged by a backhoe, burst in 1999, creating a
1½-mile-long inferno that killed two 10-year-old
boys and an 18-year-old man. When such ruptures
occur, it's "much harder to predict how far the
danger zone is around them," Weimer said.

The Nov. 9, 2004, Walnut Creek disaster was among
the worst ever recorded. While building a water
main, a construction crew's backhoe hit a gasoline
line that runs between Concord and San Jose.
Ignited by nearby welding torches, flaming fuel
spewed 60 feet into the air.

Although the contractor and the East Bay Municipal
Utility District were fined, Houston-based Kinder
Morgan was mostly blamed for not properly marking
its fuel pipe's location for the workers. The company
-- which has pipes throughout the Bay Area as well
as hazardous liquid storage tanks in San Jose,
Brisbane and Oakland -- was fined $15 million and
paid millions of dollars more in legal claims after
pleading no contest to six labor-code felonies.

Canadian authorities leveled similar allegations
against Kinder Morgan in 2009. They accused the
company of failing to accurately describe the
location of its crude-oil pipe, which was ruptured
two years earlier by a contractor digging a storm
sewer trench in Burnaby, British Columbia. No one
was hurt, but the oil contaminated shore birds and
prompted 250 residents to flee their homes. Kinder
Morgan contends others were responsible and a
trial on the accident is pending.

Limited resources

Kinder Morgan spokeswoman Emily Mir Thompson
said her company is dedicated to doing business
safely and described its pipeline operations as
among the industry's best, adding that the firm
periodically consults with public officials and
residents about its pipes.

Hoping to relieve the confusion it recently
discovered among fire officials, the state is
considering setting up a website with pipeline-
location details, said Bob Gorham, a division chief
with the fire marshal. But, he said, access will be
limited to emergency officials.
For others, Thompson recommends checking the
federal National Public Mapping System at www.
npms.phmsa.dot.gov or, if planning a dig, calling
811, a number created under a government program
to help prevent utility line damage.

Though the national mapping system provides a
general idea of pipe locations, its "target accuracy" i
s plus or minus 500 feet. And counting on 811,
which relies on information companies submit
about the whereabouts of their pipes, isn't
foolproof. That's because, according to Common
Ground Alliance President Bob Kipp, "in some cases,
the mapping provided by the owner-operator is
incorrect."

Despite its limitations, 811 remains a vital way to
prevent hazardous liquid accidents, said Weimer of
the Pipeline Safety Trust. But pipeline companies
also need to do a better job updating 811 and
informing the public about the location of their
pipes, he said, "instead of just blaming the
excavators all the time."

Contact Steve Johnson at 408-920-5043.

[HalfTracK]

Soooo the locator is given maps/drawings to put marks where a piece of paper says their pipeline is.. And he is at fault if its wrong?

[Mke]

I was up here when that rupture happened in bellingham and killed those two boys. That occurred due to lack of maintenance. I won't give out the company's name, but they are good for a rupture every two to three years. Most of the time they happen in the middle of no where and no one gets hurt. Its not a locating issue. As for the Kinder Morgan guys, at least in my area, they just started doing in house locates. Before than, all they did was toss a locator in the hands of a pipeline technician and told him "Go to this address and paint our line". The first time I met the guy in the field, he had no concept of how to isolate his line from the other utilities running near it. No Lie... I watched him connect his leads to the screw holding the warning sign to the post for the other gas line in the ROW. To his defense, his connection points were below ground and the hand holes were covered with gravel. I helped him out for about 45 minutes and he was much appriciative.

I just think it comes down to communication and a dedication from the utility owner to protect the infrastructure. I think very rarely does it come down to out right lack of locating skills from the locator. Similar to the rupture down in texas not to long ago. They called in a Pole install and gave GPS coordinates for such, but the locator didn't have a way to search for the coordinates. He located a staked area for the pipeline, but failed to go to the correct staked location due to lack of equipment or training.

Mke

[daman1]

Though the national mapping system provides a
general idea of pipe locations, its "target accuracy" is
plus or minus 500 feet. And counting on 811,
which relies on information companies submit
about the whereabouts of their pipes, isn't
foolproof.

Putting line locations on-line for public viewing SOUNDS like a great idea but I'd hate for just any Muhammed, Dick, or Harry to be able to intentionally pinpoint these high profile lines without anyone being aware of it. Yikes !!! They mean well, I'm sure, but they should consider the unintended consequences of just releasing sensitive information like that to the general public.

[ProfessionalLocator]

Putting line locations on-line for public viewing SOUNDS like a great idea but I'd hate for just any Muhammed, Dick, or Harry to be able to intentionally pinpoint these high profile lines without anyone being aware of it. Yikes !!! They mean well, I'm sure, but they should consider the unintended consequences of just releasing sensitive information like that to the general public.

Actually Mumammed already has those drawings, it's the home grown nut jobs that it would give access too.

After the utility companies started converting from drawings and microfilm to digital format for laptops they started looking for cheaper providers for making digital records. Most of this work went to foreign companies, mostly in India. Simple to transmit over phone lines or pass around on CDs. By now almost every utility record in the USA is in the hands of foreign governments and various terrorist groups.

[daman1]

Actually Mumammed already has those drawings, it's the home grown nut jobs that it would give access too.

After the utility companies started converting from drawings and microfilm to digital format for laptops they started looking for cheaper providers for making digital records. Most of this work went to foreign companies, mostly in India. Simple to transmit over phone lines or pass around on CDs. By now almost every utility record in the USA is in the hands of foreign governments and various terrorist groups.

It's not the drawings that worry me. The're all in my computer too. You still can't accurately pinpoint them without locating equipment. I'm worried about what would happen if anyone with a GPS could suddenly pinpoint them.