THE HIGH RISK OF
NATURAL PIPELINES: ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER PIPELINE EXPLOSION. THIS TIME A NEW
PIPELINE IN WEST VIRGINIA THAT TRANSPORTS MARCELLUS SHALE GAS.
AS WE HAVE OPINED
BEFORE, AN INDEPENDENT THIRD-PARTY IS NEEDED TO OVERSEE THE APPLICATION,
CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE OF THESE PIPELINES. WE HAVE NO CONFIDENCE IN THE OPERATOR OF THE PIPELINE BEING IN CHARGE OF THE APPLICATION, CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE OF THESE PIPELINES, BECAUSE IT IS AN OBVIOUS CONFLICT OF INTEREST. THE FEDS ARE (AS ALWAYS) ASLEEP OR SNOOZE,
UNTIL PIPELINES EXPLODE AND/OR PEOPLE START DYING.
January 28, 2015
FOLLANSBEE, W.Va. — The operator of a pipeline that exploded
in Brooke County is seeking the cause of the blast.
Monday’s explosion sent flames shooting several hundred feet
into the air. No injuries were reported.
Enterprise Products operates the ATEX Express pipeline. Enterprise spokesman Rick Rainey tells
The Intelligencer and Wheeling News-Register that the
20-inch diameter pipeline collects ethane from four natural gas processing
plants in the area.
Rainey says Enterprise investigators are working with the
federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to determine why
the pipeline failed.
The federal agency is a division of the U.S. Department of
Transportation. Transportation spokesman Damon Hill tells the newspaper that
the agency has an inspector on-site.
Rainey says Enterprise is awaiting regulators’ approval to
repair the pipeline.
//___________________________________________//
A
GAS PIPELINE IN BROOKE COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA EXPLODED INTO A BALL OF FLAMES ON
MONDAY MORNING, MARKING THE FOURTH MAJOR MISHAP AT A U.S. PIPELINE THIS MONTH.
No one was hurt in the explosion, but residents told the
local WTRF 7 news station that they could see a massive fireball
shooting hundreds of feet into the air. An emergency dispatcher reportedly told
the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that the flames had melted the siding off
one home and damaged at least one power line. The gas pipeline is owned by
Houston, Texas-based The Enterprise Products, L.P., which said Monday evening
that it is investigating the cause of the explosion.
The West Virginia explosion is the fourth in a string of
news-making pipeline incidents this month. Earlier this month, a gas pipeline
in Mississippi operated by GulfSouth Pipeline exploded, rattling
residents’ windows and causing a smoke plume large enough to register on
National Weather Service radar screens. On Jan. 17, a pipeline owned by Bridger
Pipeline LLC in Montana spilled up to 50,000 gallons of crude oil into
the Yellowstone River, a spill that left thousands of Montanans without
drinkable tap water. Just a few days later, on Jan. 22, it was discovered
that 3 million gallons of saltwater drilling waste had spilled from a
North Dakota pipeline earlier in the month. That spill was widely deemed the
state’s largest contaminant release into the environment since the North Dakota
oil boom began.
Here’s some footage of Monday’s explosion’s resulting fire,
via WTRF 7:
The four incidents come while American lawmakers are entrenched
in debate whether the controversial Keystone XL pipeline — a proposed
1,700-mile line that would bring up to 860,000 barrels of Canadian tar sands
crude oil down to Texas and Louisiana refineries every day — is in the national
interest.
One of arguments most often made by environmentalists
against the pipeline is that, if a spill were to occur from Keystone XL, it
would be harder to clean up than a spill from a conventional oil or gas
pipeline. Canadian tar sands oil is thicker and more sludgy than regular oil,
and does not float on top of water like conventional crude. Instead, it
gradually sinks to the bottom. Environmentalists are particularly concerned
about the fact that Keystone XL would pass over the Ogallala aquifer,
Nebraska’s primary source of drinking water. Nebraska’s state Department of
Environmental Quality has said that a spill in or around the aquifer
would only affect local, not regional water sources.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has
already passed a bill approving Keystone XL’s construction, and the
Senate is expected to pass an identical bill this week, though it has
come up against unexpected procedural hurdles. President Obama has pledged to veto
the bill.