A House committee is looking into allegations by BP employees that the company has allowed natural gas in a Prudhoe Bay processing plant to reach a level that is almost double the size of the facility’s design capacity.

The processing facility on the North Slope of Alaska was designed and built to safely contain no more than 5 Bcf of natural gas under pressure at any one time, said Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, in a letter to Alaska regulators on June 29. “We have reports that capacity has now reached 9.2 Bcf, potentially putting 1,000 lives at risk in the event of a major catastrophe,” he wrote.

“We are concerned that budget restraints have kept BP from funding necessary modifications, such as installation of new turbines and maintenance of existing turbines as recommended by the [General Electric] manufacturers,” Miller told the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

He urged Alaska regulators to respond quickly due to the “urgent nature” of the problem. “The department is…in the process of evaluating the concerns raised about the central gas facility and the central compressor plant,” the labor and workforce development agency responded last Thursday.

“BP officials have assured Alaska Occupational Safety and Health officials that the capacity…concerns do not pose an imminent danger to the workers in and around these facilities and BP is in the process of assembling the engineering data and specifications necessary to further substantiate their position,” the department said in a statement.

The British oil company already is the target of a number of state and federal investigations. Criminal investigations are continuing into a 2005 blast at a BP refinery in Texas City, TX, which killed 15 workers, and pipeline corrosion that led to two pipeline spills at Prudhoe Bay last year, The Wall Street Journal reported.

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