Arthur
Caldicott, Cobble Hill
Out of sight, out of mind. Natural gas pipelines are usually not visible - buried under our streets, and through our remote countryside – and we seldom give them a thought.
Until one of them blows up. Or two. Or thousands. In the last 14 years, there have been well over 3000 pipeline incidences in North America.
On August 7, a blast ripped apart a natural gas pipeline on the Coquihalla Highway, shattering car windows and leaving a gaping hole in the ground. On August 19, an exploding pipeline near Carlsbad, New Mexico, killed eleven people camping nearby.
Natural gas pipelines are highly explosive, and they are lethal. Over 300 people are dead, and 1400 injured, from those 3000 explosions.
This is not sensationalism. This is not twisting facts for effect. Natural gas pipelines are like continuous land mines. But because they are largely hidden from view, we remain unaware of this unseen infrastructure, and its miles of dangerous, lethal, explosive potential.
Snaking their way from the gas fields in Alberta and northeastern BC over mountains and across rivers, transmission pipes carry gas into our cities and towns. There, the big pipes are connected to distribution pipelines – the intricate network of pipes that run down our streets and into our homes.
Consider these statistics from the Office of Pipeline Safety in the Unites States. The numbers represent fourteen and one-half years of natural gas pipeline incidents, from 1986 to June 30, 2000:
There were 3116 incidents, which killed 309 people, injured 1398, and been responsible for 436 million dollars of property damage. For those with pipes running into their homes, these could be very alarming facts. Distribution pipelines had 1954 incidents, killed 267 people, injured 1189, and been responsible for 227 million dollars in property damage. Transmission pipelines – usually running across miles of woodland and farmland, and a long way from your basement – still account for 1162 incidents, 42 deaths, 209 injuries, and $251 million in damages.
A little quick math: these stats work out to an incident every couple of days, an injury every four days, and a fatality every seventeen days.
We are here concerned with natural gas pipelines. Pipelines that carry oil and liquid gas bring with them their own set of frightening statistics and environmental risks and hazards, but they are not the focus of this discussion. There is a major differences between the pipelines that carry stuff that’s liquid in its natural state, and natural gas which is ... a gas.
Natural gas in a pipeline is hugely compressed, whereas the other substances are only under sufficient pressure to move them through the pipe. This makes a big difference in what happens when a pipe breaks.
Oil and liquid gas flow out, and will pool on the ground. Oil is an environmental nightmare, as we are still experiencing from the oil pipeline rupture on the Pine River near Chetwynd this summer. But it doesn’t burn readily, and it isn’t likely to explode. Liquid gas also pools before it evaporates, but is of course highly explosive if ignited, which happened in Bellingham in June 1999, killed two children, and has resulted in a year of painful public discussion about pipeline safety in Washington State.
Give highly compressed natural gas a chance to escape the confines of the pipe, and it explodes out. Compressed to 1000 or 2000 pounds per square inch (psi) or more, it wants to expand immediately to 2000 times its compressed volume. No wonder rocks were thrown and windows shattered on the Coquihalla. No wonder there’s a huge crater in the photographs from Carlsbad. If there is also a spark, or a source of intense heat or open flame nearby, then that rapidly expanding gas ignites, and literally all hell breaks loose.
How much pressure is in a pipeline? The propane cylinder attached to your camper or barbecue contains propane compressed to 240 psi, only a ninth of the pressure in a natural gas pipeline. Does your propane cylinder make you a bit jumpy?
Now imagine that same propane cylinder with nine times the pressure in it. Picture it stretched along the border from Sumas to Cherry Point in Washington State, running under the Strait of Georgia, then across Cobble Hill on Vancouver Island to Shawnigan Lake. It’s carrying natural gas from northeastern BC or Alberta, dropping some off in Washington State, and delivering the rest to three cogeneration plants on Vancouver Island (There is a lot of concern these days about cogeneration plants because of Sumas Energy 2. Imagine three new cogeneration plants on Vancouver Island, the first coming onstream this fall!)
You need to imagine nothing. It’s all real. Williams, an American pipeline company, and BC Hydro, have teamed up to build The Georgia Strait Crossing (GSX). Applications to the National Energy Board (NEB) and the US Federal Energy Review Commission (FERC) will be submitted this fall.
Natural gas pipeline failures occur for a number of reasons.
The most common is nothing that the pipeline company can do anything about. Captured under the categories of “outside forces” and “other”, these are the broad variety of things like a backhoe ripping into an underground pipe, or a tractor plowing a bit too deep, or a ship’s anchor dragging at an underwater pipe. Outside forces account for about two-thirds of incidents on distribution pipelines (the ones that run down your street); they account for closer to one-third of the incidents on transmission pipelines. Corrosion, material defects, and construction problems account for up 50% of the incidents in transmission lines, and a far smaller proportion of the troubles with distribution pipelines. From year to year, a significant number of incidents are put into the “other” category. (3)
It is not surprising, then, to hear that Westcoast president Bob Foulks “would not rule out that vandalism was suspected” in the Coquihalla explosion. (4)
“Outside forces” and “other” are big categories. Where such a large proportion of the incidents on pipelines is attributable to forces beyond the pipeline operators control, it makes it pretty easy for pipeline proponents to qualify pipeline safety with statements like “we adhere to all safety, inspection, and maintenance standards.” You hear that time and again from the industry – that they respect all standards, adhere to the programs. They have a harder time making the statement that pipelines are safe.
The facts speak for themselves. Adhering to standards does not give us an acceptable level of safety with natural gas pipelines, because they do not, possibly they cannot, address some of the real risk factors. Murphy’s Law is at work here, and if something can go wrong, it will. Every second day, every fourth day, and every seventeenth day.
As for the Georgia Strait Crossing Pipeline Project, it is not wanted by residents and farmers in Cobble Hill, not by residents of the Gulf Islands, not by residents in Whatcom County or San Juan County. It’s too risky, and it is being built for the wrong reasons. More information is available at the SqWALK! website (http://www.sqwalk.com/) and at the official project website (http://www.georgiastrait.twc.com/).
I’m writing this on August 28th. One of those “outside forces”, or maybe it’s an “other”, happened just this morning off Ucluelet. It was small, only 0.2 on the Richter scale. There was a 2.8 quake yesterday, at 3 in the morning, and a 4.7 on August 1. In 1946 there was a 7.9 in the neighbourhood.(5) Plenty more where those came from.
In November 1999, Williams/GSX representatives met with the Marine Resources Committee of San Juan County to talk about the GSX pipeline. The Marine Resources Committee reported that “The company was ... not aware that the area is subject to earthquake activity.” (6)
Notes:
1. Natural
Gas Pipeline Operators, Incident Summary Statistics By Year, 1/1/1986 –
06/30/2000, Distribution Operators.
Office of Pipeline Safety, http://ops.dot.gov/stats/dist_sum.htm
2. Natural
Gas Pipeline Operators, Incident Summary Statistics By Year, 1/1/1986 –
06/30/2000, Transmission Operators.
Office of Pipeline Safety, http://ops.dot.gov/stats/tran_sum.htm
3. Compiled
from Incident Summaries by Cause tables
Office of Pipeline Safety, http://ops.dot.gov/stats.htm
4. No
clue about blast, The Province, August 25, page A03
5. National
Earthquakes Hazard Program:Western Canada,
Geological
Survey of Canada, http://www.pgc.nrcan.gc.ca/seismo/table.htm
6. Minutes
for the meeting of November 9, 1999,
Board
of County Commissioners, San Juan County, http://www.co.san-juan.wa.us/bocc/minutes/1999
MINUTES/TW110999.htm