Revolution pipeline blast site in Center Twp. Beaver County, PA

From an Article by Reid Frazier, State Impact PA, January 6, 2020

STATEIMPACT PENNSYLVANIA – The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection announced an agreement Friday that includes a record fine against the company responsible for a 2018 natural gas pipeline explosion in Beaver County.

The settlement also lifts a nearly year-long permit freeze on the company’s other pipeline projects, including the cross-state Mariner East pipelines.

As part of the settlement, the PA-DEP assessed a $30.6 million fine against ETC Northeast Pipeline, a subsidiary of the pipeline company Energy Transfer, the largest ever issued by the regulator. PA-DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell said in a statement the fine’s size was in part due to the company’s failure to comply with an order the agency issued one month after the blast.

“ETC’s lack of oversight during construction of the Revolution Pipeline and their failure to comply with PA-DEP’s October 2018 compliance order demanded serious accountability. Their inaction led directly to this unprecedented civil penalty,” McDonnell said.

At the heart of the settlement was the Sept. 10, 2018 explosion along the Revolution pipeline. A landslide near Ivy Lane in Center Township caused the pipeline to rupture. The subsequent blast shot flames 150 feet into the air, forced evacuations and burned one house to the ground. The fire damaged power lines and destroyed two garages, a barn and several vehicles.

The Revolution had only been in service a week, carrying gas along a 40-mile route between Butler and Washington counties, when the blast occurred. In the Consent Agreement, the PA-DEP determined that “neither temporary nor permanent stabilization … had been achieved” along the pipeline when the landslide and rupture occurred.

As part of its consent agreement, the PA-DEP outlined a laundry list of violations and oversights. Those violations extended well beyond the blast site and included failure to stabilize more than a dozen hillsides, poor stormwater management and more than 2,000 other deficiencies, resulting in impacts to “numerous” streams and wetlands.

The PA-DEP says it found that between February 2018 and December 2019, 19 different hillside sections of the pipeline weren’t stabilized, “resulting in numerous slides”; 352 separate occurrences of accelerated erosion and sedimentation; and 540 different occasions when sediment-laden water was discharged into several western Pennsylvania creeks and wetlands. In addition, the agency found over 2,000 instances where the company failed to properly implement “best management practices,” construction standards required by state permits.

The state found that the company “eliminated at least twenty-three (23) streams by removing and/or filling the stream channels with soil,” resulting in a loss of 1,857 feet of stream channel. It also “(e)liminated at least seventeen (17) and altered at least seventy (70) wetland areas by manipulating and/or filling wetlands with soil.”

The PA-DEP also found the company had plenty of warning signs the hillside was slip-prone but failed to properly manage the site. It says a January 2016 Energy Transfer analysis “concluded that the area of the Incident Site had a high susceptibility to slope failure.” Three months before the blast, a “slip” occurred on the hillside about 30 feet from where the pipe would rupture.

While the company tried to restore the hillside, the PA-DEP said, “neither an engineer nor any other geotechnical expert was consulted by field staff.” The settlement binds the company to restore the site of the blast and other wetlands it damaged, and to monitor the blast site for a minimum of five years.

The PA-DEP says that despite these deficiencies, the company hired a new management team for the pipeline and “has demonstrated its intention to correct its unlawful conduct to PA-DEP’s satisfaction.” Therefore, it’s lifting a hold on permits for Energy Transfer’s other projects in the state. These include the Mariner East pipeline, which carries natural gas products from west of Pittsburgh to an export facility near Philadelphia.

McDonnell said PA-DEP will continue to monitor the company’s activities. “The conditions imposed by this agreement seek to ensure that (Energy Transfer) will get this right. Anything less is unacceptable.”

Environmental groups renewed their criticisms of Energy Transfer, which has already racked up more than $12 million in fines for its violations along the Mariner East.

PennFuture CEO Jacqueline Bonomo said in a statement that the organization “applauds the DEP for holding this bad actor accountable for its environmental degradation and repeated violations.”

The Better Path Coalition, a coalition of environmental groups, said in a statement that many Pennsylvanians “will shudder at the thought that the company will be able once again to get permits for its projects.”

Kurt Knaus, a spokesman for Pennsylvania Energy Infrastructure Alliance, a statewide pipeline industry group, praised the settlement, saying it shows PA-DEP is ensuring pipelines in the state will meet “the highest environmental standards.”

“Skilled laborers who have been waiting to get back to work will finally be back on the job, putting their training to use for the safe, responsible development of critical infrastructure,” Knaus said, in a statement.

Fire on 24” Revolution Natural Gas Pipeline in Southwest PA

From an Article by Tony LaRussa and Tom Davidson, Pittsburgh Tribune Review, August 10, 2018

An explosion from a natural gas pipeline operating for only a week sparked a fire early Monday that destroyed a Beaver County home and two garages and prompted authorities to evacuate about two dozen other homes in the area.

The 24-inch pipeline’s owner, Dallas-based Energy Transfer Corp., said it was investigating but an early assessment of the explosion site showed there had been “earth movement in the vicinity of the pipeline.”

Center police Chief Barry Kramer attributed that to heavy, continuous rain over the weekend, but he said he’d leave determining the exact cause “up to the experts.”

Nearly 5 inches fell between Friday night and Monday morning, according to the National Weather Service.

An orange glow lit up the dark-morning sky after the fire began along Center Township’s Ivy Lane around 5 a.m.

“It was just a huge fireball. My house was shaking,” said Ivy Lane resident Toni DeMarco, 54.

Another Ivy Lane resident, 64-year-old Karen Gdula, heard what she said sounded like an 18-wheel tractor-trailer idling outside her bedroom window before the blast. “The ground shook,” Gdula said. “It looked like it was noon and it was 5 a.m. The flames were shooting higher than the pine trees.”

Residents of between 25 and 30 homes on Ivy Lane and Pine Drive were evacuated to a nearby fire social hall along Brodhead Road and were being assisted by the American Red Cross.

Authorities closed busy Brodhead Road, which is connected with Ivy Lane, and Interstate 376 between the Center and Aliquippa interchanges. Brodhead reopened to traffic by about 10 a.m. and the highway, known locally as the Beaver Valley Expressway, reopened by midday.

About 1,500 people lost power after the explosion brought down six high-tension electrical towers, according Kramer. Central Valley School District also canceled classes.

One of the few vehicles allowed onto Ivy Lane while the fire burned was a trailer used to remove several horses. Authorities relocated them to a safe area.

Energy Transfer spokesman Christopher Koop said the fire extinguished itself about two hours after it began. The pipeline’s monitoring system detected a problem and closed valves located about 15 miles apart to keep methane gas from flowing into the damaged part of the pipeline, Kramer said.

Ultimately, Kramer said, “The fire burned itself out.”

The methane gas line runs between northern Butler County and northern Washington County, and is part of what Energy Transfer calls its Revolution pipeline. It went online September 3, Kramer said.

It is not associated with Peoples Gas, the natural gas utility that serves the area, or the multibillion-dollar Shell ethane cracker plant being built in nearby Potter Township. Workers from Peoples were inspecting their gas service lines in the area to make sure they weren’t damaged Monday, but Kramer said it did not appear as if those lines were compromised.

Multiple agencies will be investigating, including the state Department of Environmental Protection and Public Utilities Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Kramer said.

Kramer said the incident needs to be investigated to determine how it happened and if other, similar pipelines in the area that are in-service or under construction pose similar threats.

“I think that’s a question that should be asked to the pipeline industry: Why did this occur?” Kramer said. “Is that something that we can go forward rest assured that this isn’t going to happen again. I can’t answer that other than I am concerned and I would like answers to those questions probably like everybody in this room. We still would like answers moving forward with this,” Kramer said.

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Mountain Valley to Stop Work on Pipeline

From Virginia Dept. Of Environmental Quality, September 10, 2018

Construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia has stopped until the storm passes. All activity is focused on stabilization of the right-of-way, and maintenance and enhancement of erosion controls. With a state of emergency now in effect across Virginia, all resources in the Commonwealth have been directed to environmental maintenance and hurricane preparedness, including the securing of materials and equipment for potential wind impacts.

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NOTICE FROM THE WEST VIRGINIA RIVERS COALITION

Free Webinar 9/13 – Learn to Detect and Report Pollution from Pipelines http://wvrivers.org/2018/08/visualassessment/

Action Alert – Comment on WVDEP’s Proposed Changes to Stream Crossing Permit http://wvrivers.org/2018/09/nationwide12factsheet/

>>> Autumn Crowe, Staff Scientist
West Virginia Rivers Coalition
304-992-6070, WVRivers.org