Major trade groups for interstate natural gas pipelines andlocal distributors last week rallied to defend their membersagainst allegations that painted them and other energy deliverysystems as ticking “time bombs.”

In a joint letter-to-the-editor published in USA Today lastMonday, the presidents of the Interstate Natural Gas Association ofAmerica (INGAA) and the American Gas Association (AGA) responded toa March 14 article that carried the headline: “When Pipelines AreTime Bombs: 2 Million Miles of Them Deliver Potential CatastropheEvery Day.” The associations reportedly were more irritated withthe headline than the actual story.

The newspaper article reported there were 3,917 liquid fuelspills and natural gas leaks by pipelines during the 1990s, roughlyone a day. These incidents mostly involved local distributioncompany (LDC) gas lines, and resulted in 201 deaths, 2,826 injuriesand $778 million in property damage, it said.

The story appeared the day after the Senate Commerce Committeeheld a field hearing on pipeline safety legislation in Bellingham,WA. Bellingham was the site of a major product pipeline rupture andsubsequent explosion last summer, which left three dead. Althoughthe incident involved a product line, the public outcry for greatersafety and government oversight has been directed at all kinds ofenergy pipelines, including gas delivery systems.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), who has sponsored the Pipeline SafetyAct of 2000 in Congress, testified at the Commerce hearing,providing an even bleaker estimate for the death toll arising frompipeline incidents. Since 1986, she said 5,700 pipeline accidentshave occurred, resulting in 325 deaths and 1,500 injuries.

“They have shattered communities from coast to coast. There areliterally hundreds of ‘Bellinghams’ out there, and there arehundreds more waiting to happen. On average, there is one reportedpipeline spill in our country every day,” she told the Senatepanel.

Her pipeline safety legislation has pipeline companiesespecially concerned because it would, among other things, expandthe safety-inspection authority of states over all types of pipes.That would mean pipelines would be hit with a double whammy —safety inspections by states and the federal government.

Responding to the USA Today story, INGAA President Jerald V.Halvorsen and AGA President David N. Parker countered thatpipelines were considered “the nation’s safest method oftransporting fuel.” They reminded critics that the gas industryspends more than $2 billion a year to ensure safety, and that a”great majority” of gas pipeline accidents are caused by carelessdigging by third-party contractors, not pipelines. The industryspearheaded the drive for a national one-call law, which wasenacted in 1998, to address this problem, they wrote.

But the claim that pipelines are the “safest form” oftransportation for fuel falls short, wrote Lois Epstein, seniorengineer with the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington D.C., ina separate letter-to-the-editor in USA Today. It “ignores theenvironmental damage caused by pipeline ruptures and shiftsattention from what Congress and [the OPS] office could be doingnow to make pipelines safer.”

The OPS has come under heavy attack in the wake of theBellingham explosion. Jim Hall, chairman of the NationalTransportation Safety Board (NTSB), said the OPS deserves a “gradeof F,” according to the USA Today story. He noted the OPS has beenthe “most frustrating area” that he’s had to deal with since histerm as chairman began in 1994, and that no other agency has apoorer record of responding to NTSB recommendations.

Moreover, the Inspector General of DOT turned up severalshortcomings in the inspection practices and training of OPSpipeline inspectors during a recent internal review, which wasconducted at the request of Sen. Murray.

Susan Parker

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