The problem, critics argue, is that today's gathering lines no longer match their old description. Driven in part by the rising demands of hydraulic fracturing, operators have built thousands of miles of new lines to transport gas from fracked wells. Despite the fact that these lines are often just as wide as transmission lines (some up to 2 feet in diameter) and can operate under the same high pressures, they receive little oversight.
Operators use a risk-based system to maintain their pipelines – instead of treating all pipelines equally, they focus safety efforts on the lines deemed most risky, and those that would cause the most harm if they failed. The problem is that each company use different criteria, so "it's a nightmare for regulators," Weimer said.
However, Andrew Black, the president of the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, a trade group whose members include pipeline operators, said that a one-size-fits-all approach would actually make pipelines less safe, because operators (not to mention pipelines) differ so widely.
"Different operators use different pipe components, using different construction techniques, carrying different materials over different terrains," he said. Allowing operators to develop their own strategies for each pipeline is critical to properly maintaining its safety, he contended.
Limited Resources Leave Inspections to Industry
Critics say that PHMSA lacks the resources to adequately monitor the millions of miles of pipelines over which it does have authority. The agency has funding for only 137 inspectors, and often employs even less than that (in 2010 the agency had 110 inspectors on staff). A Congressional Research Service report found a "long-term pattern of understaffing" in the agency's pipeline safety program. According to the report, between 2001 and 2009 the agency reported a staffing shortfall of an average of 24 employees a year.
A New York Times investigation last year found that the agency is chronically short of inspectors because it just doesn't have enough money to hire more, possibly due to competition from the pipeline companies themselves, who often hire away PHMSA inspectors for their corporate safety programs, according to the CRS.
Given the limitations of government money and personnel, it is often the industry that inspects its own pipelines. Although federal and state inspectors review paperwork and conduct audits, most on-site pipeline inspections are done by inspectors on the company's dime.
The industry's relationship with PHMSA may go further than inspections, critics say. The agency has adopted, at least in part, dozens of safety standards written by the oil and natural gas industry.
"This isn't like the fox guarding the hen house," said Weimer. "It's like the fox designing the hen house."
Operators point out that defining their own standards allows the inspection system to tap into real-world expertise. Adopted standards go through a rulemaking process that gives stakeholders and the public a chance to comment and suggest changes, according to the agency.
Questions have also been raised about the ties between agency officials and the companies they regulate. Before joining the agency in 2009, PHMSA administrator Cynthia Quarterman worked as a legal counsel for Enbridge Energy, the operator involved in the Kalamazoo River accident. But under her leadership, the agency has also brought a record number of enforcement cases against operators, and imposed the highest civil penalty in the agency's history on the company she once represented.
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9 Comments
Add CommentThere's an incomplete list of significant US pipeline accidents on Wikipedia:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pipeline_accidents_in_the_United_States
I spent many hours this year cleaning a spill from an oil tank in my newly purchased home. I would rather heat with wood. Wood spills are easier to deal with. I can imagine what the previous owners had for health.Cars are leak prone. Asphalt roads and shingles emit oil.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs an engineer that designed and partially oversaw powerful crash test installations, I am well aware of the dangers over regulation can pose to complex, highly proprietary industries that carry significant intrinsic dangers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the one hand, underdeveloped countries with virtually no regulative culture usually yielded us customers that encouraged us to skimp on safety in order to enhance performance. (Which we constantly refused to do, btw. American culture may be focused on results and profits, but we DO still value human life!)
On the other hand, very heavily regulated countries (read: Europe) were extremely oppressive and forced us to change our products without really understanding the situation themselves. It's like they were used to making change for the sake of change itself, as if ordering companies around automatically made things safer.
In general, well-funded regulatory agencies *do* enhance a culture of extreme safety, but too much oversight from regulators who don't understand the product can (and does) lead to safety compromise. The fact that regulators can have so much unchecked power over companies is a dangerous thing in of itself.
We really should re-think the whole technological progress thing, though it might get a bit expensive to produce the helmets and kneepads we all need, without mass-production factories.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThreats, threats - always some threats.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBig friggin' deal.
Back in the day, like, 500 years ago, more people died and died more frequently. Horrible deaths, too.
Today's people are a bunch of mincing nancys benefiting from the sweat and toil of prior generations of real men and women.
I partially agree with you; I think that regulators should know what they are doing, but that's mostly because all government officials should be intelligent enough to tie their own shoes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the other hand, I am a socialist, and feel that market economies have a worrying track record (just check out any history book that covers the period from about 1880 to 1910). I feel that it is very hard to over-regulate corporations.
Anytime pipelines are used, above ground or buried, and the chief materials are iron and/or concrete, the degradation factors will play into the demise of said pipelines. If these pipes are carrying hazardous materials across this continent, as most of them do, there will be (accidents) and to be sure, those responsible know this to be true. The responsible action would be to make these lines impervious to conditions, but that would be too costly for them to carry, and reduce the profit margins to reasonable levels. The equation then becomes how much risk is it worth? and the answer usually is how much profit do we get if we do what is cheap... Business as usual, let everyone suffer our profit, because we dare to build with sub-standard materials.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with your iron and/or concrete comment. And your 'usual answer' comment. Problems with iron and concrete used as if eternal elements are also 'evolving' with abandoned oil/gas wells. Here in Alberta these are often sold and resold until they end up 'owned' by entities that have are in the ditch-then the taxpayer ends up paying for the fix.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDepleted fields ended up rich in H2S-hydrogen sulphide. H2S directly and indirectly attacks iron, concrete-just about everything. Also deadly naturally gaseous poison that easily plumes from a faulty abandoned well. Any state in the USA that is like Ab with its 70,000+ abandoned wells, you already know this costs. Never mind the 'mincing nancys' and their health. Maybe some of them have psychological problems, but the economic costs are tangible enough. Problems like this should be paid for at the front end-off of any potential profits. I got .1% confidence that the governing entities-at least here in Alberta-are not going to end up 'doing it wrong'
'A sad population of im*eciles would our schemers fill the world with, could their plans last. A sorry kind of human constitution would they make for us—a constitution lacking the power to uphold itself, and requiring to be kept alive by superintendence from without—a constitution continually going wrong, and needing to be set right again—a constitution even tending to self-destruction. Why the whole effort of nature is to get rid of such—to clear the world of them, and make room for better.'
Herbert Spencer
Enbridge, here in Michigan, failed to use their corrosion devices! That's bad enough, they TURNED OFF the alarms. Results are predictable: Largest land spill in history.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this18 hours of non-response.
Bastards -- Enbridge.