The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has zapped the Transportation Department's liquids pipeline safety program.
In a special report, NTSB analyzed the Research and Special Programs Administration's (RSPA) efforts to implement safety measures. An NTSB spokesman said ruptures on the Colonial Pipeline Co. system helped prompt the inquiry.
NTSB looked at RSPA's implementation of prior NTSB safety recommendations for product pipelines, including prevention of excavation damage, control of corrosion damage, inspection and testing, and methods to more rapidly detect, find, and close failed sections of pipelines.
NTSB also analyzed RSPA's product pipeline accident data, looking for trends and causes. And it evaluated the way RSPA collected that data and used it to identify problems and evaluate the safety of individual pipelines.
Threat to safety
The safety board pointed out that pipelines transport about 57% of the crude and products moved in the U.S. and said, "The potential threat to public safety from releases has become more severe in recent years as the rate of residential and commercial development adjacent to all types of pipelines has increased.
"Further, there has been growing congressional, state, and local concern about the environmental consequences of releases from pipeline systems, particularly those transporting crude and products, which potentially pose the greatest risk to the environment."
NTSB said although RSPA's data on liquid pipeline accidents show some general trends and conclusions, it is insufficient for RSPA to perform an effective accident trend analysis or properly evaluate operator performance.
NTSB said, "Although RSPA has taken positive regulatory action and undertaken other initiatives to minimize excavation damage, RSPA has failed to take effective and timely action to address corrosion control, inspection and testing of lines, and methods to limit the release of product from failed pipelines.
"RSPA's failure to fully implement the safety board's original 1978 safety recommendations to evaluate and analyze its accident data reporting needs has hampered RSPA's oversight of pipeline safety.
"With the deficiencies of the current accident data base for hazardous liquid pipelines, RSPA will find it exceedingly difficult to fully implement an effective risk management program."
What's required
NTSB urged RSPA to start using a better method of collecting and using gas and liquid pipeline accident data within 2 years. It said RSPA should require gas and liquid pipeline operators to periodically test whether their systems can operate at maximum allowable pressures.
And it said RSPA should expedite requirements for automatic or remotely operated valves on high pressure main lines in urban and environmentally sensitive areas.
An RSPA spokeswoman said the agency worked "hand in hand" with NTSB on the report and largely was in agreement with it. She said Congress in the fiscal 1996 budget gave RSPA more funding for data collection.
NTSB is a watchdog agency without enforcement powers. But its loud barking at RSPA is sure to attract the attention of Congress, which is impatient with the slow pace of pipeline safety improvements (OGJ, Apr. 24, 1995, p. 23).
Copyright 1996 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
