A Sorry Excuse for Pipeline Safety

Harry S. Truman was president of the United States when a section of natural gas pipeline was laid down near Carlsbad, N.M., back in 1952. That section of pipe by the Pecos River ruptured and burst into roaring flames Aug. 19, killing 11 campers and leaving just one injured survivor in the worst pipeline accident in the continental U.S. in nearly 25 years.

Investigators said that they found corrosion near the spot where the El Paso Natural Gas Co. pipe gave out. That section of pipe had never, in 48 years, been internally inspected because it was too curvy and narrow for automated inspection devices. But it could have been water-pressure tested, and that hadn’t been done either. The cause of the rupture that sent a 1,200-degree flame as high as 350 feet into the air may not be known for weeks or months, but the inadequacy of pipeline inspection remains.

In fact, there are no federal rules requiring internal pipeline inspections. The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the accident, has pushed for 13 years for necessary changes in petroleum product pipeline safety, but has has not found the congressional or private industry audience needed to produce new regulations.

Among the long-standing pipeline safety needs are: internal inspection of pipelines; additional training for company employees responsible for pipeline safety; automatic shut-off valves that can quickly isolate pipeline ruptures; and tougher, more-corrosion-resistant steel in the manufacture of new pipelines.

Currently, there are pitifully few federal and state pipeline inspectors, and they don’t even know where all of the pipes are located. There are just 55 federal inspectors for the more than 2 million miles of pipeline in the U.S. And according to a recent General Accounting Office report, the number of inspections dropped from about 800 in 1996 to about half that last year. In New Mexico, pipeline maps fail to show all of the lines. One state inspector recently discovered pipe that had been in place for several years but hadn’t been reported.

There is a lot to do to bring the nation’s aging petroleum pipeline system up to acceptable standards. It shouldn’t take another white-hot pyre somewhere else in the nation to get the ball rolling.