Enforcement: Conservative group sees politics in play in EPA’s Dimock retreat — Tuesday, July 30, 2013 — www.eenews.net
July 31, 2013
Feds fail to inspect 2 Million miles of pipelines
July 31, 2013
Central Valley Business Times.
Report: Feds fail to inspect 2 Million miles of pipelines
WASHINGTON, D.C.
July 30, 2013 8:46am
WASHINGTON, D.C.
July 30, 2013 8:46am
• Is it rupture roulette?
• “Like searching for gas leaks with a lit candle”
Some two million miles of pipelines carrying natural gas, petroleum and hazardous liquids are going uninspected by the federal agency charged with safety oversight, says the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
It claims that only a small fraction of the nation’s vast network of pipelines has undergone any sort of inspection in recent years, including several hundred pipelines that have spilled or broken down.
(Download a pdf of the inspection record by clicking on the link below.)
As a result, the safety and reliability of much of this key but volatile transport grid remains unknown, it says.
Records obtained from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that:
• Of the more than 2.6 million oil, natural gas and propane pipeline miles regulated by PHMSA less than a fifth (583,692) has been inspected by federal or state officials since 2006;
• Another 132,300 miles have been inspected by their operators during that same period but PHMSA cannot say whether any industry inspections have been independently reviewed;
• Since 2006, there have been more than 300 incidents, such as a spill, explosion or breakdown, which triggered no follow-up inspection.
Despite the figures, PHMSA’s latest annual report on to Congress on inspection and enforcement needs is less than one page long and mentions no need or even desire to increase inspections.
“At the current rate, most of our oil and gas pipeline network will not be inspected in this generation,” says Kathryn Douglass, an attorney for PEER, noting that the present rate of less than one thousand federal and state inspections each year cannot keep pace with pipeline expansion.
“Inspections are supposed to prevent damaging incidents but the main way pipeline deficiencies now become manifest is when ruptures or explosions make them obvious,” she says. “This approach to pipeline safety is like searching for gas leaks with a lit candle.”
Nor is it clear that the causes of pipeline breakdowns are effectively remedied even after major spills or blasts occur, says PEER. In the period since 2006, PHMSA recorded 3,599 incidents, defined as a release resulting in injury or death or major property losses, but took only 1,526 enforcement actions during the same period, according to PEER’s review of the records
Similarly, months following “major pipeline disasters,” as PEER puts it, PHMSA has yet to implement the vast majority of corrective measures recommended by the National Transportation Safety Board.
“PHMSA is a sleepy, industry-dominated agency that tries to remain obscure by doing as little as possible,” says Ms. Douglass.
Drilldown
Port Ambrose LNG terminal
July 22, 2013
MORE IN NEW YORK »By
- WILL JAMES
A proposal to build a natural-gas facility off Long Island and New Jersey has turned into a proxy for the debate about hydraulic fracturing, the gas-drilling technique that remains banned in New York state.
Liberty Natural Gas LLC is asking the federal government for permission to build a facility where ships carrying liquefied natural gas would dock, vaporize the gas and pump it into the New York City area.
The company says it will never use the $300 million terminal in the Atlantic Ocean to export the gas overseas. But opponents are skeptical, saying the facility to be called Port Ambrose could drive a hydraulic-fracturing boom in the Northeast as the U.S. natural-gas industry appears poised to pivot from importing to exporting.
Federal agencies are reviewing the application, but environmental groups from the Catskills to the Jersey Shore are lobbying Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a New York Democrat, and Gov. Chris Christie, a New Jersey Republican, both of whom have the power to stop the proposal.
“Fracking in New York state will be made possible because of this facility that is being proposed off of our shores,” said Jeremy Samuelson, the executive director of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, an environmental group in eastern Long Island.
A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo said: “We are monitoring the federal process.” A Christie spokesman didn’t respond to requests for comment. In 2011 and 2012, Mr. Christie vetoed two proposals by Liberty to build offshore terminals, citing environmental and security concerns.
Liberty, based in Manhattan, said it wanted only to exploit a niche market in the New York City area, where winter prices rise because pipeline capacity falls short of demand.
“We’ve identified New York City as a particularly attractive seasonal peak market during the winter months,” said Liberty Chief Executive Roger Whelan.
Industry experts backed the Liberty business plan’s logic. “It’s not totally crazy, because of the constraints to deliver to the New York City area,” said Kenneth Medlock, senior director of the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University, in Houston. “It’s a way around pipeline constraints.”
Hydraulic fracturing—widely known as fracking—involves the injection of millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals into the earth to break up shale rock and release natural gas. Critics cite concerns about groundwater pollution, hazardous byproducts and the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Parts of New York state sit on the Marcellus Shale, a rock formation rich in untapped natural gas. A moratorium on widespread, high-volume fracking has been in place since 2008 as New York state government officials weigh whether to allow it. It is legal in other states, such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, that also sit atop the formation.
The U.S. Coast Guard and the Maritime Administration are conducting an environmental review of the Port Ambrose proposal, which would be 20 miles southeast of Jones Beach on Long Island and 28 miles east of Long Branch, N.J.
Port Ambrose would consist of two submerged buoys—each 33 feet tall and 24 feet in diameter—moored to the sea floor where ships could stop and turn liquefied natural gas into its gas form. The gas would travel through underwater pipelines into an existing pipeline serving New York City and Long Island.
The Maritime Administration ultimately will rule on the application, but it must deny it if Mr. Cuomo or Mr. Christie expresses opposition.
The proposal comes at a dynamic time for the gas industry. U.S. prices have been dropping for years as new production methods such as fracking have driven a domestic boom.
As U.S. natural gas production has hit record heights in recent years, more companies have been seeking to ship it overseas. Port Ambrose is one of four pending import terminals, while there are 20 seeking to export, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
A representative for Neptune LNG Deepwater Port, an offshore terminal in Massachusetts Bay near Boston designed to exploit a niche similar to the one eyed by Liberty in New York, said last week that low natural-gas prices have rendered the facility inactive for years and it planned to suspend operations.
Neptune was one of only two operational offshore ports designed to import liquefied natural gas—like Port Ambrose.
Even though Neptune is shutting down, Mr. Whelan said the Boston area still relies on liquefied natural gas from other facilities in the winter, due to pipeline constraints. “It really is an apples and oranges comparison,” he said. “We still believe there’s a very strong market in the winter months for this kind of supply into New York City.”
Some of the contention over Port Ambrose hinges on whether it would be legal or technically feasible to switch an import facility to an export facility.
Mr. Whelan said he wouldn’t seek to export gas from Port Ambrose because it wouldn’t be legal under the federal license he seeks. Liberty’s opponents say federal law allows the Maritime Administration to easily amend licenses without having to solicit public input, and they want the federal government to take the impacts of exporting the gas and fracking into consideration.
The Maritime Administration said if Liberty sought to export liquefied natural gas from Port Ambrose, it would be required to file a new application and restart a lengthy review process. The current application is being considered exclusively for importing, a spokeswoman said.
Emerging technology will allow exporters to liquefy natural gas on vessels and ship it from offshore terminals like Port Ambrose, but Mr. Whelan said that technology was prohibitively expensive, costing billions of dollars. “It would be insanity to install an export facility,” he said.
A version of this article appeared July 22, 2013, on page A19 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Offshore Plan Spurs Debate On Fracking.
PEER – NO SURPRISE FEDERAL PIPELINE SAFETY EXERCISES SINCE 2005
July 18, 2013
PEER – NO SURPRISE FEDERAL PIPELINE SAFETY EXERCISES SINCE 2005.
For Immediate Release: Jul 17, 2013
Contact: Kirsten Stade (202) 265-7337
NO SURPRISE FEDERAL PIPELINE SAFETY EXERCISES SINCE 2005
Scant Oversight or Local Coordination on Pipeline Emergency Response Plans
Posted on Jul 17, 2013
Washington, DC — The federal pipeline safety agency has not conducted a single surprise exercise for more than eight years to determine whether an operator can execute emergency response plans, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Nor does the agency have a ready account of which emergency response plans it has approved, rejected or changed.
More than 2.5 million miles of pipelines carrying oil, natural gas and high-hazard liquids, honeycomb the U.S. Each year, there are more than 100 “significant” pipeline accidents involving loss of life, injuries, fire and/or major spillage. Recent pipeline spills and explosions have had catastrophic results.
Federal guidelines call for up to 20 unannounced exercises annually to demonstrate an operator’s “ability to respond to a worst case discharge spill event.” Yet in documents obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) concedes that –
- It has not conducted any unannounced safety exercise since 2005, when it only conducted one. In the preceding 10 year period, the agency conducted 36 surprise exercises, peaking with 14 in 1997;
- In the last five years, PHMSA has completed only 26 announced safety reviews, with only one initiated in 2012. More than half of all these reviews (15) occurred in 2011; and
- The agency cited two exercises in 2004 which were labeled “unknown” because PHMSA had no record on whether they were surprise or scheduled.
“Since there are no surprise safety drills, it should be no surprise when the on-scene response to actual emergencies is lacking,” stated PEER Counsel Kathryn Douglass, who brought the suit that pried the documents loose. “Given PHMSA’s supine posture, pipelines in America are essentially self-regulated.”
Beyond whether operators can carry out their emergency response plans, the adequacy of those plans also remains in question. Months after PEER asked and ultimately sued PHMSA to produce response plans submitted by pipeline operators, the agency still has only been able to provide a handful of the 314 current plans. Moreover, PHMSA cannot identify a single one of the more than 1,000 pipeline response plans it has reviewed during the past five years that it has rejected or amended.
“If it takes PHMSA months to produce copies of emergency response plans, that means communities on the front line have no access to the safety playbook in case of an accident,” Douglass added, noting that in recent major pipeline spills, local emergency response agencies were in the dark both about what was occurring and what the planned response was supposed to include. “We should not have to sue in federal court to obtain pipeline emergency response plans – they should be posted routinely on the web.”
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See PMSA list of pipeline safety exercises – unannounced, announced and unknown
Look at federal guidance on unannounced pipeline exercises
Scan the list of all current and archived facility response plans
View PHMSA failure to implement NTSB recommendations following recent disasters
GDACC 
