Natural gas pipeline accidents do happen!

From an Article by Eric Billingsley, New Mexico Business Weekly, Albuquerque, September 16, 2002

Two years after one of the deadliest natural gas pipeline explosions in New Mexico’s history, Houston-based El Paso Corporation has reached the last in a series of out-of-court settlements with family members of the victims.

On August 31, El Paso reached an undisclosed settlement with Martha Chapman and Jerry Rackley, who lost five family members on August 19, 2000 when a natural gas pipeline owned by the company exploded near Carlsbad, New Mexico killing 12 people. They were camped next to the Pecos River near the path of the pipeline when the explosion occurred.

Chapman and Rackley filed suit in the District Court of Eddy County in February 2000 charging El Paso with five counts of wrongful death. The case was set to go to trial on October 1 in the Fifth Judicial District Court in Chaves County. Claims for the other seven people killed were filed as separate lawsuits, and have been settled out of court for undisclosed amounts since 2000. The only amount disclosed was a $14 million settlement for one of the victims.

“The settlement resolves all outstanding civil litigation in the state of New Mexico associated with the rupture,” says El Paso spokesperson Mel Scott.

“Hopefully an important lesson has been learned by El Paso and the natural gas industry in general so this kind of tragedy can never again occur,” says Bob Schuster, attorney for Chapman and Rackley.

The Carlsbad explosion is still being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) to determine whether there was negligence on the part of El Paso.

Shortly after the blast, NTSB Chairman Jim Hall issued a statement saying that investigators determined the section of pipe that failed had not been inspected internally since the 1950s. A series of reports issued by the NTSB in June said “severe corrosion damage” was found on the bottom of the pipeline near the explosion site, according to a recent article in Natural Gas Intelligence, an industry trade publication. NTSB is responsible for determining the cause of the explosion.

The DOT is seeking a $2.52 million civil penalty from El Paso for safety violations including: failing to ensure qualified personnel performed corrosion control procedures; transporting corrosive gas on numerous occasions without taking proper and mitigative steps; failing to follow procedures for surveillance of its facilities; failure to take action to reduce the possibility of pipeline failure following a similar incident in 1996; and not having an accurate elevation map for lines involved in the Carlsbad incident, which would have shown where liquid could accumulate and corrosion could occur.

The penalty is considered the largest civil penalty proposed against a gas transmission pipeline operator in the history of the federal pipeline safety program, according to DOT officials.

El Paso has been issued several compliance actions from the OPS since 1984 that address maintenance procedures, timeliness in performing safety inspections, inadequate training of personnel on preventing corrosion, gas vent locations and valve security. The OPS also notes that on “more than one occasion” El Paso has failed to promptly restore and maintain protections against external corrosion on its system.

One year prior to the Carlsbad explosion, a liquid gasoline pipeline owned by Olympic Pipe Line Co. (which has since been purchased by Shell) leaked and exploded, killing two children in Bellingham, Washington.

The families of the two children sued Olympic, Houston-based Equilon Pipeline, Los Angeles-based Atlantic Richfield Co. which owned the petroleum products being transported in the line, and IMCO General Construction Co. which had apparently dented the pipeline a few years prior to the accident. That case was also settled out of court in April for $75 million, less than a month before going to trial.

Another Tanker Accident, Route 52, Mercer County, WV, April 6, 2015

Charges pending in deadly Wood County work zone crash

From an Article by Shauna Johnson, WV MetroNews, June 12, 2015

Highway crews perform difficult and sometimes dangerous work on West Virginia’s roads each day, said state Transportation Secretary Paul Mattox after the death of a worker Thursday. “It’s dangerous enough, that type of work as it is, but to do it under traffic conditions, people just need to slow down and pay attention,” he said.

The Division of Highways employee died after a tanker truck started a chain-reaction crash in a work zone along Route 50 in Wood County. Randall Bland, 49, of Waverly was killed after being pinned between a van and a DOH truck. Mattox confirmed Bland was a DOH crew supervisor who had worked with the division for 12 years.

At least five other people, including several children, were hurt in the accident that happened about 2 p.m. Thursday near Route 50’s intersection with Dutch Ridge Road.

“It’s just so sad to lose someone who was only 49 years old in a work zone,” Mattox said Friday. “We do our best to try to get the public to slow down and pay attention when they enter these work zones and these tragedies can be avoided.”

Charges were pending against the truck’s driver, according to investigators with the Wood County Sheriff’s Department. No charges had been filed as of Friday morning, however. The truck was owned by Hall Drilling, LLC.

In a separate accident Thursday morning, a Randolph County man was killed along Route 219 when a DOH van struck him. The victim was identified as Earl Franklin Woods, Jr., of Valley Head. Also, recall the tanker accident on I-79 near Star City (Morgantown) on May 11th, where the fire was too hot to extinguish but the driver was thrown free of the fire.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Full details released following tanker truck crash, explosion on Route 92

From an Article by Kathlynn Stone, WVVA Multimedia Journalist, Beckley, WV, June 10, 2015

On Wednesday, June 10, 2015, at approximately 2:29 am, members of the Greenbrier County Sheriff’s Office responded to a report of a tractor trailer accident on Route 92, approximately 2 miles north of the Anthony Correctional Center.

Initial investigation revealed that the tractor trailer was southbound on State Route 92 when it traveled off onto the western shoulder of the roadway. The vehicle continued to travel southwest and subsequently impacted a tree causing the truck and tractor to jackknife, blocking both the north and southbound lanes of Route 92. The impact also resulted in a fire to both the tractor and trailer. Anthony Creek Fire Department, as well as White Sulphur Springs Fire Department, responded to the scene.

The trailer was a tanker unit, however, it was empty at the time of impact. No fuel spill was determined by the Emergency Disaster Response unit.

The driver of the truck, identified as Sheridan B. Browning of Marlinton WV, received non-life threatening injuries and was transported to Greenbrier Valley Medical Center for treatment.

Route 92 was closed north of the Anthony Correctional Center and south of the Pocahontas County line. The road is expected to be reopened to vehicular travel sometime Wednesday morning. Sergeant J. J. Martin is the investigating officer.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Death of Penna. man in fracking truck accident shows need for greater traffic safety measures

Submitted Column to Wilkes-Barre PA Times-Leader, January 9, 2015

From a Letter by Edward Ciarimboli, founding partner in the legal firm of Fellerman and Ciarimboli, a personal injury law firm with offices in Kingston, Scranton and Philadelphia

A fiery crash in Susquehanna County last week took the life of a 27-year-old Marine and father of two young boys. The SUV in which Staff Sgt. Andrew Stevens was driving reportedly was stopped behind two fracking trucks when a water truck smashed into the back of him.

The crash caused a chain reaction that sandwiched Stevens’ SUV between the water truck and the fracking truck in front of him, according to a published report. The SUV immediately went up in flames and Sgt. Stevens died at the scene.

An increase in natural gas fracking has led to a spike in traffic fatalities in towns that find their roadways filled with large drilling rigs and fracking trucks. Drilling activity increases too quickly for many small communities to keep pace in making changes in road safety, such as building new roads, improving or widening existing roads or installing traffic signals in areas where they might now be needed. The deadly consequences of this increased and unexpected traffic are seen in the death of Sgt. Andrews and other fatalities like this across the country.

An Associated Press analysis of traffic deaths and U.S. census data in six drilling states show that in some places fatalities have more than quadrupled since 2004, a period when most American roads have become much safer. According to the Associated Press, the hydraulic-fracturing process also requires 2,300 to 4,000 truck trips per well to deliver needed fluids, while older drilling techniques needed many fewer trips.

Texas, a state that has been in the midst of a multi-year fracking boom, has seen traffic deaths climb as a result. The Texas Department of Transportation reported that fatal crashes on Texas highways increased 50 percent from 2009 through 2013. This increase in fatalities came after decades of declines in Texas, just as the boom in fracking operations was beginning. Texas led the nation in traffic fatalities in 2012.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration’s 2012 Fatality Analysis Reporting System shows that Pennsylvania is in the top five states in fatal crashes, with 1,211, following only Texas with 3,021, California with 2,632, Florida with 2,247 and North Carolina with 1,222. These five states accounted for more than a third of the fatal crashes in the entire country.

The Associated Press reported that traffic fatalities in Pennsylvania drilling counties rose 4 percent from 2009 to 2013, while in the rest of the state they fell 19 percent.

While safer vehicles and highways are helping to improve traffic safety, we need to help decrease the number of accidents near fracking sites. Pennsylvania and other states need to work to improve safety in fracking towns by widening and improving roads and enforcing traffic laws. Although federal rules limit the amount of time most truckers can drive, the rules are less strict for drivers in the oil and gas industry. These laws need to be improved and enforced.

We need to do all we can do to prevent tragedies like the death of Sgt. Andrew Stevens and others who have fallen victim to fracking truck accidents.