The Department of Transportation (DOT) released a report Thursday that outlines recommended practices for local governments and developers to make development of pipelines safer and provides a framework for considering risk when facilities are built near high-pressure pipelines.

The report, a two-year effort, was conducted by the Pipelines and Informed Planning Alliance (PIPA), a 130-member coalition led by the DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Its members include representatives of the pipeline safety community, city and county governments, and developers, fire marshals and pipeline operators.

“After the San Bruno tragedy in California, many communities began to question the wisdom of [siting] homes too near pipelines. This report from PIPA is a great start at helping communities better consider those risks, and then use their local planning, zoning and permitting authority to help reduce those risks,” said Carl Weimer executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust and a member of the PIPA steering committee.

In September a rupture underground on Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s (PG&E) 30-inch diameter steel transmission pipeline caused an explosion and fire that tore through a residential neighborhood in San Bruno, CA, south of San Francisco (see Daily GPI, Sept. 13). A preliminary report of the National Transportation Safety Board said the blast, which killed eight people, released 47.6 MMcf of natural gas. The ruptured pipeline was fractured lengthwise and at welds that held the pipe sections together (see related story).

The PIPA report offers 50 recommended practices to limit the safety risks that result form the growth of communities near pipelines. Specifically, it addresses how land-use planning and development decisions can help protect existing pipeline infrastructure and expanding communities. And it provides recommendations on how communities can gather information on local transmission pipelines and on how local planners, developers and pipeline operators should communicate during all phases of new development.

The American Petroleum Institute (API), which participated in the PIPA initiative, touted the report. “API encourages communities through which pipelines operate to follow the recommended planning practices to protect themselves from pipeline accidents, and to protect pipelines from encroachment…Pipelines are the safest way to move fuels to customers, but…they need to be respected and protected,” said API CEO Jack Gerard.

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