What’s a giant fireball among friends, am I right?
An investigation by Texas regulators into the massive pipeline explosion in Deer Park last fall has found no safety violations by the pipeline’s operator Energy Transfer Company – a determination drawing outrage from people who had to flee their homes during the inferno.
“I’m stunned,” said Brandi Gardner, who said her sense of safety has been shattered by the terror of the pipeline exploding just beyond her family’s backyard. “That valve should have been protected all along with barriers… especially knowing that it was so close to a residential area.”
The investigation report from the Texas Railroad Commission provides little information explaining how the state pipeline safety agency reached its “no violations” conclusion, beyond saying that inspectors met with company officials and reviewed various records. The Railroad Commission did not grant interviews or answer Houston Landing’s questions on Monday.
Energy Transfer’s above-ground pipeline valve carrying natural gas liquids exploded on Sept. 16 and burned for nearly four days after an SUV crashed into it, killing the driver, burning and melting nearby homes, cars and power lines, and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of homes and businesses in Deer Park and La Porte.
Although the pipeline valve was located in a heavily populated area, next to busy Spencer Highway and adjacent to a high-traffic Walmart Supercenter parking lot, it was surrounded with only a chain link fence, archived Google Street View images show.
It is unclear from the Railroad Commission’s vaguely written report how inspectors deemed chain link fencing to have been adequate protection against vehicle strikes. About 25,000 vehicles a day travel that stretch of Spencer Highway.
Bill Caram, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, a national safety advocacy group, said the lack of any violations being cited in the Deer Park explosion illustrates a critical problem with the nation’s pipeline safety laws.
Pipeline safety rules say each valve must be “protected from damage or tampering,” Caram said, but they give operators the latitude to determine how to best achieve the result.
“The code is frustratingly vague about the types of protection operators need to have around valves,” Caram said. “I would have thought that the level of loss and destruction we witnessed was enough proof that Energy Transfer’s efforts fell short of requirements.”
[…]
The Railroad Commission’s report, which appears to have been quietly uploaded into the agency’s online regulatory database on Friday, has just three sentences of findings and contributing factors for the explosion.
The regulatory report cites Energy Transfer’s investigation as determining that the root cause of the pipeline rupture and fire was due to the vehicle crash. The report then notes: “To minimize the possibility of recurrence, [Energy Transfer] added additional concrete barricades (jersey barriers) around the valve site and other similar locations. After records review, no rules violations were cited.”
Energy Transfer, in a brief emailed statement to the Landing, said the company was in compliance with all rules and regulations at the time of the SUV crash and that “there are no required actions to be done before an event that is unforeseeable (an intentional act by a third party).”
See here, here, and here for some background. I don’t know what I expected, but I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s the Railroad Commission, this is how they roll. There is something we can do about it, though.
Vincent Gardner, who is Brandi Gardner’s husband, expressed frustration that it seems there is no local, state or federal agency that is trying to help their neighborhood recover or taking action to protect against future pipeline explosions caused by vehicle crashes.
“This is all being swept under the rug. They want this to go away as fast as possible. It’s obvious. They want business to go on as usual,” Vincent Gardner said.
Your State Rep is Briscoe Cain, and we elect one member of the RRC every two years. If as you say that is what they want and it’s not what you want, well, you will have the chance to take direct action about it next year. The Chron has more.