Nearly seven years to the date of a major explosion on the El Paso Natural Gas pipeline system that killed 12 people in New Mexico, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Transportation (DOT) last Thursday announced a settlement that requires comprehensive reform of the natural gas pipeline’s entire 10,000-mile system and orders El Paso to pay a multi-million-dollar civil penalty.

In the first judicial settlement brought under the Pipeline Safety Act, the El Paso pipeline will be required to spend at least $86 million to enact widespread and comprehensive modifications to its pipeline system, with a focus on eliminating internal corrosion. El Paso also was ordered to pay a $15.5 million civil penalty to resolve alleged violations, federal authorities said.

The complaint, which was filed concurrently with the settlement agreement last Thursday in U.S. District Court in New Mexico, alleges that El Paso failed to employ personnel qualified in corrosion control methods; failed to investigate and mitigate internal corrosion in two of its pipelines transporting corrosive gas; and failed to suitably monitor those pipelines to determine the effectiveness of steps taken to minimize internal corrosion, the DOJ said. These mirror the “probable violations” that the DOT’s Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) cited El Paso with nearly a year after the explosion (see NGI, June 25, 2001).

In 2001, the OPS announced it was seeking a fine of $2.52 million from El Paso for the “probable violations” that potentially contributed to the fatal explosion. But El Paso challenged the claim that it committed any violations. As a result, the department was unable to collect the fine from the pipeline, and referred the case to the DOJ in 2004 because it has “better ability to assess larger fines.” In 2002, DOJ empaneled a grand jury in New Mexico to consider criminal charges, but that was dissolved and no charges were ever filed (see NGI, Nov. 18, 2002). Pipeline safety advocates in New Mexico and elsewhere around the nation were disappointed that action by the federal government was so slow in coming.

“The comprehensive pipeline modifications [El Paso] will complete as part of today’s settlement will help to ensure that the severe internal corrosion that resulted in such a tragic accident will not be repeated,” said Ronald J. Tenpas, acting assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s environment and natural resources division. The Aug. 19, 2000 blast, which has been labeled the worst natural gas pipeline disaster in the United States, killed 12 members of two related families, including five children, who had been fishing and camping alongside the Pecos River near Carlsbad, NM.

In February 2003, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded that the probable cause of the fatal explosion and fire on one of El Paso’s mainlines was “severe internal corrosion” of the 1950s-vintage line, which spans California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and northern Mexico. The board cited the pipeline’s inadequate corrosion-control program and lax oversight by the federal OPS inspectors as contributing factors.

The blast occurred because corrosion of El Paso’s Line 1103 on its South Mainline system had eaten away up to 72% of the pipeline wall and “the remaining metal could no longer contain the pressure within the pipe,” the NTSB said in its final report. It noted that had the El Paso line been able to accommodate cleaning pigs, and used those pigs regularly, corrosion “would likely have been less severe.”

Specifically, the settlement requires El Paso to:

The consent decree is subject to a 30-day public comment period and approval by the federal court in New Mexico.

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