The Department of Transportation (DOT) has issued a final ruleaimed at toughening the safety standards for large pipelinestransporting hazardous liquids through heavily populated andenvironmentally sensitive areas of the nation. The agency furtherindicated that a comparable rule for natural gas pipelines is onthe horizon.

The rule, which calls for regular integrity testing of hazardousliquid lines every five years, would go into effect 60 days afterbeing published in the Federal Register, at which time pipelineoperators would have nine months to identify the “entire range ofthreats” to the integrity of their pipeline segments and a year todevelop a written integrity management program. The rule alsorequires pipeline operators to conduct a baseline assessment oftheir system within seven years, and sets specific timetables forwhen repairs must be completed. It would apply only to large liquidlines of 500 or more miles.

Similar rules are being developed for all pipelines underfederal and state oversight, including natural gas pipelines, andwill be released either later this year or in early 2001, accordingto the DOT’s Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS).

While the new rule mandates testing that many pipelines alreadyperform voluntarily, it will double the rate of testing for manyoperators and will require them to make available for governmentalreview their plans for assessing and addressing risks that cancontribute to pipeline failures, the OPS said.

Starting in a year, the OPS and state inspectors will reviewpipeline integrity management programs addressing such risks ascorrosion, outside force, human errors and material defects,according to the DOT agency.

In addition, President Clinton last Monday directed the DOT todevelop a comprehensive plan no later than Jan. 15, 2001 forfurther improving the safety standards for smaller hazardous liquidand natural gas pipelines. “That means that we need to havesomething out on record by then. That may be just the notice ofproposed rulemaking, saying ‘this is the direction we would like totake. Now you, the industry and the public, report back to us onwhether this is doable,'” said Patricia Klinger, a spokeswoman forDOT’s Research and Special Programs Administration, which overseesOPS.

It likely would include guidelines for strengthening enforcementof pipeline safety violators; enhancing federal-state oversight ofinterstate pipelines; expanding public access to information onpipelines (i.e. incident investigations); and greater coordinationof research and development efforts on pipeline integrity betweenthe Department of Energy, state agencies, industry and the public.

While pipeline safety legislation appears to have all but diedin Congress this year, Clinton said the administration was takingthese steps using its existing authority. The deadly pipelineexplosions near Carlsbad, NM, and in Bellingham, WA — whichtogether killed 15 people in the past two years — “haveunderscored the need” to initiate this action, although theadministration continues to support passage of a pipeline safetybill on Capitol Hill, the president indicated.

Susan Parker

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