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San Bruno 30" Natural Gas Transmission Line, -FAIL- 10

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itsmoked

itsmoked

Electrical
Feb 18, 2005
19,114
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bureaucrats aside, they don't do the work, where is the operating company engineer or the inspection protocols

have to say there has been a lot of residential property sold in Tx where the dotted line on the plot plan was glossed over at closing, only for the home owner to discover latter that it was a high pressure pipe line right-of-way...

you wouldn't think a right minded builder or a right minded realtor, or a mortage lender would allow it, but it seems that money changes a lot of attitudes when the risk is beyond the horizon.

Have to say that engineered designs are generally considered unsafe unless they are routinely inspected. Thats why we have the Boiler Codes...

Amazing failure.
 
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They are considered safe only at the time of design. 54 years later.... well that's entirely another story.

17-1058074210T.gif
 
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Hacksaw, let me tell you about TX developers:

Back in the late 80's/early 90's our 2260 psi line went through Friendswood, along with other lines in a cooridor. A developer came in and set aside the surface near the coridoor as a open space. That developer went belly up and a new developer comes in building smaller and cheaper homes and replats the land with lots ON the pipeline ROW!!!

Friendswood had enacted a law that required that a foundation of a home must be 15 feet from a easment, sounds nice huh?

Nope, our line was less than 10' from the easment edge making the line 15 feet from the homes.

As the homes went up, we glued API signs to the fences over our pieplines. Needless to say that one homeowner was upset because they had paid the home builder extra money to pour a concrete patio out the back to a point where it would meet the apron of the prefab pool they had bought.

About the same time, our pipeline markers were disapearing as our lines crossed under the grand entry to the subdivision. I paid a vist to the developer and gave him a copy of the latest DOT rules that increased the fines for removing or damaging pipeline markers, I believe it went up to $25000 from $5000. He told me that if I and my company interfeered with his business he'd sue us both for millions. We parted without a handshake that day.

Two weeks later we recieved a letter from a mortgage company asking if we would acknowlege that our pipelines wer covered by DOT safety rules and that we followed the DOT rules. If we did not, the person could not get an FHA backed loan. That letter went in to a file cabinet.

I was under no obligation to return the letter timely. About the same time, people buying homes near high powerlines had to read a report and sign a paper that declared that they understood the dangers of high power lines.

Back to the developers office I went and said that we would not release any information on our pipelines unless he provided an acknowlegment from a buyer that they were aware of our lines. He refused and nobody could qualify for an FHA loan. stalemate. His company went under a year later.
 
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engineering safety, is it ever complete?

Had not heard the Friendswood account, but have been there, beautiful city at least before the floods. In my own case it was in the far northwest of Houston, lots of gas there, and ambition, but I am afraid "let the buyer beware" is not enough. My own family member was fortunate enough to have a license engineer in the family who said wait a minute what's this...threats of suits followed due to refusal to close on the home...ultimately only the earnest money was lost, we were lucky...I can't say that for the ultimate purchaser. Lets see that was in 1980, so in anouther 23 years (54-31), we'll find out how lucky we were...

Have to say any HP gas line, whether 4" or 30" routed under residential property is criminal. I cannot imagine the potential for disaster when the underground sanitary piping goes out.
 
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Again, aside from all of the junior metaphysics of wondering is "anything really safe" the question remails:

What are reasonable rules for high pressure gas mains and what is a reasonable ROW in a residential neighborhood ?

Again, as I stated above:

"At this point in the discussion, it would be interesting to compare the current regulations for USA gas pipe routing to those in Europe."

I am willing to bet that the German gas piping standard is far different than the rules used in California and Texas....

Anybody ?



 
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They seem to be on the trail ... left by somebody else.

Don't really want to use this analogy, but they do say, "Vultures perform a most necessary service."

Must be a lesson in here somewhere.
 
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More fun with ancient piping systesms......only a few killed.... this time it's Cast Iron pipe.


Ill bet that the brutal Pennsylvania cold and the Nil Ductility Transition temperature of ancient Cast Iron will be investigated...

Wait......I can hear it now.....from an MBA at the Gas Pipeline Company.....ACT OF GOD....ACT OF GOD......ACT OF GOD...
 
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so far there is no reporting I have seen which would indicate that a natural gas pipeline leak has been identified as the cause of this unfortunate accident. Assuming it was caused by gas, it could have been a leaking service line, a leaking pipe inside the building or even a missing plug in the gas meter. Probably should hold off on the finger pointing at the old cast iron pipe for a while...
 
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Many gas utilities don't have a clue what's in its sytems. I remember once finding redwood gas piping still in use after nearly 100 yrs. Or better yet, the steel, low pressure, distribution lines had completely corroded away and the gas containment was the hardened clay originally surrounding it - gas still made it to the residential customers through the still intact risers.

 
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MJC,

I've seen your posts for years in this forum and have found them valuable.

However, it seems that you really have a burr under your saddle about this topic. Nothing personal, but am I wrong????

I've always worked around a lot of dangerous stuff, high pressure gas, steam, poisionous stuff, rotating machinery, etc as well as having lived right next to HP pipelines - pipelines that blew up within hearing distance of my dwelling on more than one occasion. I've seen all of it reach out and kill and injure people around me. Maybe I've just become stoic.

I decided long ago that when the good Lord was ready to take me, He had beau coup different ways to do it.

rmw
 
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rmw,

Thank you for your remarks, I also have great respect for your contributions to these fora.

Yes, I do have a bit of a burr under my saddle. I hate liars and managers/bureaucrats who hide behind others.......you should too ! These are the people who will publicly gloss over the real villan here..... a lack of risk based analysis as the piping system ages

Part of my purpose here is to learn something and to flush out the truth about the status of gas pipelines and thier maintenance.

I do not believe that there is adequate and reasonable care taken based on the age and locations of our gas piping infrastructure.

We are going to find that the San Bruno accident involved an ancient pipeline running at the maximum pressure allowed for a new line. Eight human beings barbecued...

A four month old boy was burned to death in Pennsylvania....

Based on the speed everthing else happens in this corrupt state, we will get some kind of report in 2014 calling the accident an act of God....advocating more study and recommending eventual replacement of piping installed just after World War I.

I guess nobody else seems to get excited about this....

I only hope and pray that the next fire and explosion takes out a Senator or Congressman ..... (CNN and FOX will have many close-ups of the charred carcass) because that seems to be the only way anything productive really happens in the US of A.

Sorry, ...I have been sick lately ...and I only go on eng-tips when I have been drinking...

regards, rmw

-MJC

 
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MJC,

I had wondered if maybe you had some relatives involved in the carnage.

But is this any different than electric companies, for example, operating 50-60 year old coal burners that pollute like mad?

They try to build new modern efficient plants with latest technology and the greenies fight them at every turn.

I would think that it is next to impossible to get a new pipeline permitted since most people seem to want nothing in their back yard these days.

So an apathetic public heavily influenced by a bunch of tree huggers seems to bear some of the brunt of the responsibility too, don't they?

rmw
 
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rmw and MJC,
Sorry to put my two cents in, but;
As an outsider with very little knowledge of natural gas distribution, it seems to me that there is no reason that this should happen. The owner of the lines is responsible and any gas line that is run with a strong possibility of causing loss of human life (i.e. in a residential area) should be legally required to have an inspection regime in place and a process in place to replace the lines when deteriorated.
This is the U.S. and there is no excuse for aging infrastructure causing loss of life, as in this case or the I-35 bridge collapse. As engineers we are all aware of the relationship between perfect safety and economic reality.
rmw,
Although I agree with your assessment of power plant politics, it is spurious to compare a higher pollution power plant, which causes no direct loss of life, with a completely avoidable gas main explosion which instantly causes the death of several people.

The elected representatives of this country are supposed to be wiser than the rabble who vote for them. That is why we have a Senate. I would guess, knowing what lobbyists do, that the natural gas industry has many people whose job it is to schmooze and bribe the Congress to avoid any onerous regulations which would affect the bottom line. MJC is right. If this happened to a congressman or his family there would be serious repercussions. As long as it doesn't happen to the rich or powerful it doesn't matter.
 
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jgailla,

"natural gas industry has many people whose job it is to schmooze and bribe the Congress to avoid any onerous regulations which would affect the bottom line. MJC is right. If this happened to a congressman or his family there would be serious repercussions. As long as it doesn't happen to the rich or powerful it doesn't matter."

i will ask you to prove your comment. i know you cannot . . .

do you really think that a pipeline operator (i.e. PG&E or otherwise ) wants to operate an section or portion of pipeline knowing there is a high-risk or non-compliant section of pipeline (San Bruno or otherwise)? and lobby a politician to avoid responsibility? get your thoughts corrected forthwith!

hell no!

complacency . . . and ignorant decisions . . . we may never know. HOPEFULLY, the regulatory agencies will implement changes resulting from these accidents. no different than the improvements made in the BPVC since the 1850's (boiler explosions on trains). it may take awhile, but . . .

do not ever think that a loss of life, regardless of social class, age, status, etc. is meaningless.

i am certainly not defending the pipeline operators, but i do believe that no pipeline operator wants to operate an unsafe or high-risk pipeline. if so, than repercussions await them. the facts cannot be hidden!

-pmover
 
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pmover,

I will have to mostly agree with jgailla on this one, and I can prove it. Although the gas companies aren't interested in purposely blowing anyone up they also aren't interested in seeing greater restrictions on what they can do, and they fight restrictive policy (safety and/or environmental) tooth and nail. There is a long history of the companies and their money influencing bureaucratic policy. Just read the report on the Deepwater Horizon ( particularly Chapter 3. Here’s a direct quote from it:

"Revenue generation—enjoyed both by industry and government—became the dominant objective. But there was a hidden price to be paid for those increased revenues. Any revenue increases dependent on moving drilling further offshore and into much deeper waters came with a corresponding increase in the safety and environmental risks of such drilling. Those increased risks, however, were not matched by greater, more sophisticated regulatory oversight. Industry regularly and intensely resisted such oversight, and neither Congress nor any of a series of presidential administrations mustered the political support necessary to overcome that opposition. Nor, despite their assurances to the contrary, did the oil and gas industry take the initiative to match its massive investments in oil and gas development and production with comparable investments in drilling safety and oil-spill containment technology and contingency response planning in case of an accident."

Regards,
K
 
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Risk assessment is often problematic with respect to costs incurred from potential damage, injury, loss of life, etc. especially when the costs of inspection, testing, replacement are highly quantifiable.

Many years ago, I was able to dissuade operations from their desire to substantively increase operating pressure on old gas pipelines which crossed major faults and which were subject to major earth quakes thereon and were subject to known subsidence and earth slides. I was also acutely aware of the flaws(now rejectable) inherent in the long seams of pipe manufactured in the early 1950's. With today's emphasis on the quantifiable bottom line, it might be much more difficult to adequately (in the bean counters' eyes) do do the same.

 
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