Enterprise Products Partners LP has completed repairs to the portion of its partially owned North Texas gas pipeline that was damaged on the afternoon of June 7 in rural Johnson County, TX, the partnership said Monday.

The rupture of the line by a utility crew caused the loss of 250 MMcf/d of capacity. Customers were rerouted, Enterprise said (see Daily GPI, June 9). One worker was killed by the blast and several were injured.

Full service to customers affected by the disruption was restored last Saturday. The North Texas pipeline is a 36-inch diameter, 395-mile segment of pipeline that extends from the Waha Hub in West Texas to the Carthage Hub in East Texas.

A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of one of the injured utility workers, Corey S. Gautreaux, The Lanier Law Firm said Tuesday. Gautreaux was part of a crew installing electric utility poles for Dewey, OK-based C&H Power Line Construction Co. when the Enterprise line exploded, the law firm said.

The lawsuit, which was filed Monday in the 295th District Court in Harris County, TX, names Enterprise as the defendant and includes claims of negligence and gross negligence based on the company’s alleged failure to properly mark its gas lines and failing to warn workers where the lines were located. The case is Corey Gautreaux v. Enterprise Products Partners, LP, No. 2010-36243.

“We’ve just started our investigation, but I can tell you already that this looks like it was a very preventable catastrophe,” said attorney Mark Lanier. “What makes it so sad is that several people were seriously hurt and at least one life was lost simply because proper safety procedures weren’t followed.”

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