Mar 21
2010

.

Report from WFAA, Friday, 3/19

(Thanks, WFAA for the embeddable video.)

There has been an explosion at a gas well near Decatur, say police.

The Decatur city manager said [batteries of storage tanks] blew up on Farm-to-Market Road 51, about four miles outside of town.

Four tanks were on fire; the blaze, at one point, spread from tanker to tanker. A fifth storage tanker was blown well away from the site. Around 1 p.m., firefighters got the flames under control.

There are reports of two burn victims.

“Initial information is that there is a work project going on, installing four tanks. A worker was welding and there was an explosion that occurred. Two of them were burned, minor burns, first degree, like a sun burn. One started having respiratory difficulties, so they flew him to Parkland hospital. The other one went by car to the local hospital,” said the Wise County fire marshal, Marc Dodd.

“One guy was on a ladder and he got blown off,” said Brandon Evans from the Wise County Messenger.

Crews had to transport water to the site to extinguish the fire.

. . . . .

After a well is drilled, [batteries of storage tanks] are installed, to hold oil that comes out of the well. There is not an active well being drilled at this location.

– complete story at WFAA

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Oct 31
2009

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20091031/NEWS01/91031008

Two teens killed in gas pipeline explosion

Two teenagers died in an early morning explosion at a gas pipeline in Carnes.

Wade White, 18, and Devon Byrd, 16, died at site of the explosion, which happened around 4 a.m. today near White’s home on Phillip White Road.

Byrd was a sophomore at Forrest County Agricultural High School and White had just graduated.

“They were two wonderful kids,” said Wanda White, Wade’s mother. “We just can’t understand what happened. My babies are gone.”

White said she and her husband were awakened by a noise early in the morning. After discovering the boys weren’t in the house, they discovered the fire just a stone’s throw from their home.

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Oct 4
2009

Residents returning home after gas pipeline catches fire in Marrero

By Times-Picayune Staff

October 03, 2009, 1:44PM

gasfire
Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune
A giant ball of fire covers most of 4th Street near the intersection of Ames Boulevard on Saturday.

About 40 apartments at the St. Bakhita complex were evacuated as a precautionary measure after a fire in a gas pipeline in the 4000 block of Fourth Street at Ames Boulevard, authorities said. The $22 million apartment complex opened in April.

No one was injured in the incident that was reported around 10:25 a.m. Chief Rickie Eslick of the Marrero-Ragusa Volunteer Fire Department said that residents were allowed to return aroiund 12:30 p.m.

Eslick said the cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Atmos Energy officials said they received a report shortly after 10:30 a.m. of a fire near an 18-inch main gas line that runs long Fourth Street. Company officials said they believe that a gas leak from the pipe was ignited by overhanging Entergy powerlines, causing the explosion and fire.

Entergy officials could not be reached for comment.

Complete story at:  http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/10/post_41.html
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Sep 13
2009

NewsAdvance.com, Lynchburg, VA reports:

Appomattox heals, one year after pipeline blast

By Carrie J. Sidener

Published: September 12, 2009

APPOMATTOX —  Deputy John Mattox still patrols the stretch of Virginia 26 that’s just north of town.

He passes the spot daily — right there, at the crest of the hill — where a year ago he stopped, stepped out of his cruiser and snapped a photo.

He knew what he had to do early that Sunday morning, and he thought it would kill him. The photo, he reasoned, would help investigators piece together how he died.

As he felt the air sucking away from him and into an expanding fireball just down the hill, Mattox tucked the camera under the driver’s seat. Then he ran toward the inferno fueled by a ruptured natural gas line, going door to door to move residents from their homes to safety.

A year later, new grass and weeds cover the scorched earth. The wreckage of two homes blown apart in the explosion is gone. Except for melted siding on a few homes up the road and some boarded-up windows, there is little physical evidence of the blast that rocked this tight-knit community on Sept. 14, 2008.

Even Mattox’s photo is gone. He deleted it from his camera a few months later.Details of that day, though, are seared in his memory. It is the same for many Appomattox residents who lived through the crisis — similar to the way that history-changing events are etched in the minds of those who experienced them, like President John F. Kennedy’s assassination or the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Greg Heath still remembers his panicked realization that morning that the pipeline he helped maintain had ruptured.

The Williams Gas Company employee was awake in his bed when the phone rang. As he answered the call, his wife went to the window. She yelled for him to come look.

“I looked at the fireball and I knew we started it,” he said. “The only thing that can burn like that is a ruptured pipeline. I thought, `Good God, we’ve set the world on fire.”

Heath has worked for Williams for 24 years and is trained in what to do in an emergency. He hopped into his truck and drove to the compressor station, a tenth of a mile from his home. The control panel there showed dangerously low pressure in one of the lines. He pushed a button to shut down the pumps that moved gas through the lines.

As he tried to report the rupture to the company’s control office, other local Williams employees called from valve locations along the pipeline demanding to know which line to shut down completely. They didn’t need to be called. They had seen, and heard, the rupture.
Heath didn’t go out to the site of the blast until four days later.

“I was devastated,” he said. “Everything was just blackened and awful. It was like a piece of hell.” Heath still doesn’t like to ride past the site, about three miles from his home, even though most evidence of the damage has been erased.

“It was hard for me to see what we had done,” he said. “Those people lost everything they own. … I felt like we did a good job of taking care of what needed to be done.”

Mattox, the deputy, was called a hero for his actions getting residents to safety. He knows it is a miracle, really, that no one died in the blast.

“This caught me off guard by its magnitude,” he said recently. “I will always remember the size of that fireball. That fireball was massive. … I believed that it would spread to adjacent residences.”

Just before Mattox took the photograph, he met Junior and Dorothy Bryant on the road as they fled from the cloud of dust and the rocks that punctured their roof and landed in their living room.

A year later, Bryant’s home — located a few hundred yards from the blast site — sits empty with a for sale sign in the front yard. Sometimes, he drives to his home of six years and sits in the driveway just to think. The Bryants never really returned to that house except to gather their belongings.

The couple lived with family members for a few months before settling with Williams. The company bought their old house and their new one, just down the street from the company’s compressor station. Some people joke about their new address, but Dorothy loves the house, Junior Bryant said.

“People look at us like, `Didn’t you get enough?’” he said. “I don’t find no fear in it. This thing was not supposed to happen.”

He’s hiked and hunted along those pipelines for most of his life. The Bryants looked at other places after the blast, but fell in love with the spacious house on Pumping Station Road.

It took a while, though, for Junior and Dorothy to be comfortable in their new home. Sounds of maintenance on the compressor station startled them. And once in a restaurant when a balloon popped, Junior almost hit the bottom of the table.

He thanks God that he and his wife are still alive.

“If it had been at night, I’m not sure we would have gotten out,” Bryant said. “If we hadn’t gotten out before the fireball, we wouldn’t have made it.”

He remembers sitting in the emergency shelter eating dinner with Dorothy that night a year ago.

“I would have thought it would never happen to me, where we live,” Bryant said. “We were sitting there eating dinner and thinking, `Wow, this is real.’ One morning things are normal and the next, the world’s upside down.”

. . . . .

The rupture brought the pipeline to the attention of many in Appomattox who had previously ignored it.

“People in the county didn’t know the pipeline was near their houses,” said Timmy Garrett, Appomattox’s fire chief. “We had people who bought their houses, and had no idea that they were 25 feet from a gas line.”

Now, strange or loud noises around the pipeline and compressor station prompt calls to emergency dispatch, said Bobby Wingfield, the county’s emergency services director.

“With the presence of the gas pipeline, any abnormality, any suspicious activity draws attention,” he said. “People, not just pipeline people, are more aware of it.

“It will take a while for people, when they hear a loud sound, to think it’s something other than the pipeline.”

http://www2.newsadvance.com/lna/news/local/article/appomattox_heals_one_year_after_pipeline_blast/19441/

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Sep 13
2009

KRGV.com reports, 9/13/09

RIO GRANDE CITY – The sky in Rio Grande City was lit up Saturday night by a huge fireball. It was the result of a natural gas pipeline explosion.

. . . . .

Firefighters say it was a challenging blaze for them because they couldn’t get to it to tackle it. Fire crews waited for the gas company to turn off the gas to that location first and waited for the fire to subside a bit before battling it. The fire burned for at least two hours and then dwindled on its own.

Fire crews are meeting with the pipeline company tomorrow morning to find out what caused the explosion. They say one possibility is that the lines could be old. The lines will stay turned off for now.

Complete story at:
http://www.krgv.com/news/local/story/Gas-Pipeline-Explodes-in-Rio-Grande-City/9ZYzNbqk-kSpqAK11wFqYg.cspx

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Sep 13
2009

KRGV.com in Texas, 11/26/08:

Dangers of Gas Pipelines Under Neighborhoods

Reported by: Will Ripley

MCALLEN – NEWSCHANNEL 5 uncovered the potential danger caused by natural gas pipelines under Valley neighborhoods.

Six weeks ago, a natural gas pipeline exploded in McCook. The ball of fire was 400 feet high and over 1,500 degrees. The flames melted everything around them, including the asphalt on the road.

NEWSCHANNEL 5 spent the past six weeks traveling across Texas, digging up documents, and tracing a trail of pipelines. We found the pipelines weaving under your neighborhoods, your homes, and your schools.

We also learned natural gas is being blamed for a series of house explosions in north Texas.

“We have a very volatile situation,” says Jay Marcom. The north Texas farmer was in Austin, testifying to the Railroad Commission about the danger of natural gas pipelines. He says worn-out pipelines are leaking natural gas, polluting his land, and putting lives at risk.

“They’re just sitting out there waiting and rusting, waiting to explode,” Marcom says.

He agreed to come to the Valley with special equipment used to detect natural gas leaks. It didn’t take long before we found one. It was less than three miles from the McCook explosion site.

“You can smell the natural gas in this area,” commented Marcom.

NEWSCHANNEL 5 learned there are literally hundreds of miles of natural gas pipelines, running under thousands of Hidalgo County homes. This includes houses in McAllen, Mission, Edinburg, and Pharr. In fact, Hidalgo County has more pipelines than all the other Valley counties put together.

Railroad Commission documents show some of these lines are over five decades old. Back then, the pipelines were surrounded by empty fields.

Now, new homes and businesses are going up in the area. We’re told the land is too valuable not to develop.

“You’re moving out into the oil field and you’re exposing yourself to danger when you do that,” says Marcom.

City and pipeline operators work together to keep you as safe as possible. Companies try to keep a 50-foot buffer zone around the lines. But NEWSCHANNEL 5 found out that doesn’t always happen.

We saw one pipeline running directly underneath homes. Another pipeline runs right under McAllen Memorial High School.

Gas companies insist it is safe to build over pipelines, as long as the public knows they’re there.

. . . . .

NEWSCHANNEL 5 spent two days searching for pipelines. Most of the sites looked well maintained. All of them were fenced off, keeping us and our testing equipment out.

We tried talking to the HESCO Gathering Company, which owns the pipeline that blew up in McCook. They also own gas lines that run right under Valley neighborhoods. They turned us down for an on-camera interview.

But they did agree to answer some of our questions by phone and email.

HESCO says they’re still waiting on lab reports to confirm the official cause of the McCook explosion. But they tell NEWSCHANNEL 5 it was likely a “corrosion issue.”

We asked if HESCO’s other gas lines are corroding too. They responded, “We do significant testing on our pipelines.”

But they couldn’t give us an exact date. They did say, “We are constantly inspecting and treating our pipelines.”

More than a dozen companies operate natural gas lines in the Valley. Only one company, Shell, agreed to an interview. They have three full time inspectors in the Valley. They check 600 miles of pipelines, preventing problems before they happen.

Shell spokesperson James Blanton says, “The safety of the public and the environment is of the utmost importance to us.”

We asked him if the accident in McCook could happen in McAllen.

“Yes, hypothetically, yeah it could happen,” says Blanton, “But I’m very confident it will not be a Shell line.”

The Texas Railroad Commission also has four inspectors covering more than a thousand miles of pipelines in the Valley. Their job is to make sure those pipelines are well-maintained.

But even the state admits whenever you mix pipelines and people problems are bound to happen. According to the Railroad Commission, 200 such accidents happen a week in Texas. That’s more than 28 accidents a day.

Most accidents happen when construction workers dig and hit a gas line.

Ramona Nye of the Texas Railroad Commission explains, “This is the number one cause of accidents in the state. We are working hard to reduce those accidents.”

The Railroad Commission will soon begin fining people who dig into pipelines, without calling to find out where they are.

But Marcom says with so many gas lines in such a populated area, it’s only a matter of time before the next big accident.

“You’ve got the same ticking time bomb out in the country, in McAllen, in the Valley, with these unregulated gas gathering lines that are just waiting to explode,” he says.

We should point out the local government makes millions of dollars in tax revenue from these gas gathering lines.

The official report on the McCook explosion is due out in two weeks. As soon as we get that information from the company that owns the line, we’ll share it with you.

If you’re buying a home, it’s up to you to look around and see if there are any gas pipelines in the area. If you live near a natural gas line, the Texas Railroad Commission says you should always call before you dig. You can dial 811 or call 800-545-6005.

If you see or smell gas, get away from the area immediately and don’t use your cell phone because it could spark an explosion. Once you’re in a safe area, call police to report a possible gas leak.

Complete story at:
http://www.krgv.com/content/news/investigations/story/Dangers-of-Gas-Pipelines-Under-Neighborhoods/IFdmgVrTAEqwnRvsStHctw.cspx

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Sep 2
2009

… and what if the well had ignited?

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports:

Trucks and other equipment worth about $8 million were destroyed late Tuesday in an explosive fire at a natural gas drilling site northwest of Joshua, officials said.

The fire started in one of the eight Kenworth trucks parked at the site operated by Chesapeake Energy in the 3200 block of County Road 913, said Gerald Mohr, emergency management coordinator for Johnson County.

Mohr said no one was hurt, but the flames were intense.

“It was a pretty good fire that generated a good bit of heat,” he said. “We had quite a few tankers hauling water.”

No natural gas contributed to the fire, which was reported at about 11:15 p.m., said Lt. Tim Jones, Johnson County Sheriff’s spokesman.

“It was all equipment and no gas,” he said. “There wasn’t a blowout or anything like that.”

Flames, however, spread to the other trucks, which were parked very close to each other, Mohr said.

The vehicles were destroyed along with pumps, blenders and other equipment used in the process of hydraulic fracturing of a gas well.

Members from several Johnson County fire departments battled flames for about four hours at the drilling site. The area is about a half-mile west of the intersection of Farm Road 1902 and CR 913, which is also called Caddo School Road.

Firefighters came from Joshua, Briar Oaks, Mid North, Godley, Bono, Burleson, Cleburne and Tarrant County, Jones said.

A lot of them were needed to haul water and operate long-distance nozzles and aerial ladder trucks, Mohr said.

He said that the blaze had to be fought at a distance to protect the firefighters, but not because it was a natural gas drilling site.

“There were trucks in there with diesel tanks on them,” he said. “All those trucks have two or three fuel tanks on them. “We had a couple explosions.”

The fire’s cause was being investigated Wednesday, said Jerri Robbins, Chesapeake spokeswoman.

“A contractor was finishing hydraulic fracturing operations when one of the blender trucks caught on fire,” she said.

She added that “it is likely that tires on the trucks made a sound like an explosion as they were burning, not the diesel tanks.”

The equipment was operated by Denton-based Liberty Pressure Pumping which. Jones said, reported that the estimated cost of the equipment lost was $8,310,000.

Officials for that company could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/story/1581059.html

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Aug 31
2009

Letter published today in the Cleveland Sun Star Courier:

by James W. Cowden, Guest Columnist

Monday August 31, 2009, 9:24 AM

This is being sent as a result of the several letters on oil and gas drilling that have appeared in your pages over the past month.

The other paper has also published material including a column on the financial benefits to Ohio.

What has not been publicized has been the impact of oil and gas drilling on the natural resources and the public health of Ohio and its citizens.

I have been a consultant on environmental and resource issues for over 30 years. I have worked with Ohio EPA and the Division of Oil and Gas to curb and control the problems associated with the industry for a number of those years.

I have written ordinances for many cities in Northeast Ohio to allow them to control drilling in their communities. I have written a technical guide book for Ohio EPA. I have testified in court cases against drillers and their haphazard waste disposal practices, their drilling proposals, and the lack of adequate regulation.

The development of oil and gas wells is inherently a dangerous activity. Although there are few deaths and injuries reported, they do occur.

For instance, two men were killed in Marion County last October by an explosion of a crude oil storage tank.

The industry has too little concern for public health, for our groundwater resources, and for facts.

Natural gas is a highly compressible, highly expansible mixture of hydrocarbons, with approximate percentages of Methane-80%, Ethane-7%, Propane-6%, Butane-2.5%, Pentane-3% and Isobutane 1.5%.

In addition, natural gas may contain quantities of nitrogen, helium, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and water vapor. In Pennsylvania, methane related to the natural gas industry has contaminated water wells in at least seven counties since 2004.

In one case, methane was detected in water sampled over 15 square miles. In another, a methane leak led to an explosion that killed a couple and their 17 month old grandson. These cases were linked to newly drilled, active natural gas wells.

Essentially, the methane migration was linked to improper construction of gas wells that allowed gas to seep out of the well structures and into water supplies.

An adequate inspection system would have prevented these accidents from happening. Since the passage of HB 278 by our feckless state legislature, neither regulation nor inspection has been carried out adequately by the state.

Groundwater constitutes the most important mineral resource annually extracted from beneath the earth’s surface.

Water is an economic resource for Ohio and preservation is an economic necessity. Groundwater monitoring in the state is inadequate to detect water quality problems.

A product of oil and gas well drilling is brine.

What’s so bad about brines?

Brines are too concentrated, they have too much sodium and there is far too much of it, Clinton brines have 175,000-210,000 parts per million of sodium.

For comparison, ocean brines have only 18,000-35,000 ppm of sodium.

The USPHS standard at one time was a maximum of 250 ppm. One volume of Clinton brine can raise 800 volumes of fresh water above the 250 ppm limit.

There is no adequate program to address lack of disposal capacity. I do not have data beyond the 1980′s but I have no reason to believe the ratios have changed.

At that time, there were 56,000 producing wells with an average brine production of 184,000 barrels with an estimated injection well capacity of 36,000 barrels. The excess was 148,000 barrels.

That is roughly 6.2 million gallons, which if dispersed could make 4.8 billion gallons of fresh water unsuitable for use.

I tried to get legislation passed to prohibit brine in surface or groundwater in such quantity as to cause:

1. Taste and odor problems

2. Exceedance of safe drinking water standards or limit of 100 ppm of sodium

3. Damage or injury to public health or safety to include damage to the environment beyond the immediate site of drilling and storage of oil and gas.

4. This would include exposure to benzene, ethyl benzene, alkyl benzene, toluene, xylene, naphthalene, and 2,4 dimethyl-phenol that exceed drinking water standards. Also exposure to concentrations of silver, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, mercury, lead and zinc that exceed drinking water standards.

This came from “Toxicological Analysis of Ohio Brine Constituents and Their Potential Impact on Human Health.” By Dr. Gerald Poje.

Regulation 1501-9-9-02 at one time required all reasonable means to safeguard against hazards to life, limb and property. It should require notification of local fire officials of fire, explosion, major gas leaks, water and air pollution and training on how to cope.

There are a number of recommendations I would make to amend state law and regulations and require compliance.

First would be to abolish the subservience of the legislature to the oil and gas industry and think about the public they supposedly serve.

There is a need to redefine the ground surface water system and restructure the approach from correction to prevention.

But unless the Division of Mineral Resources is mandated to protect human health and drinking water and is given the funds and staff to accomplish this, both public health and the economy will continue to suffer.

__________________________________

James W. Cowden is a resident of Brecksville. He has been a researcher, educator, coordinator and consultant at Kent State University and Hiram College and has written extensively and provided expert testimony on a range of topics including water resources planning, pollution control, public health and public involvement in policy development.

http://www.cleveland.com/sunstarcourier/index.ssf/2009/08/brecksville_resident_weighs_in.html

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