The Huffington Post--Utah Oil Spill 500 Barrels Spill Into Red Butte Creek After Pipeline Breaks

First Posted: 06-13-10 12:34 AM. Updated: 06-13-10 02:55 PM

SALT LAKE CITY (AP)— A leaked pipeline sent oil spilling into a Salt Lake City creek, coating geese and ducks and closing a park, officials said Saturday as they started a cleanup effort expected to last weeks.

At least 400 to 500 barrels of oil spewed into Red Butte Creek before crews capped the leak site. Nearly 50 gallons of crude oil per minute initially had spilled into the creek, according to Scott Freitag, a Salt Lake City Fire Department spokesman.

"Our real concern is keeping people safe, and keeping the oil from reaching the Great Salt Lake," he told the Deseret News.

Chevron determined the pipeline broke at 10 p.m. Friday, and police and fire crews were notified of it shortly before 7 am. Saturday.

Officials were unsure of the cause of the leak, near the University of Utah campus, or the extent of the spill's environmental impact. Mayor Ralph Becker said drinking water for residents was not affected.

"Our fire teams have capped the site and will work to determine the damage and the best course of action," the mayor said in a statement.

The state Division of Water Quality was onsite assessing damage and will issue a violation notice against Chevron, Gov. Gary Herbert said in a release. The governor said he was monitoring the spill, which he called "devastating."

Chevron spokesman Mark Sullivan said some residual oil was still leaking and the cleanup likely will take "weeks."

"We're taking full responsibility for any financial damage, environmental damage, safety concerns, impacts on health and cleanup," Sullivan told the Salt Lake Tribune.
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.Blast in Texas Panhandle kills 2, injures 3

Well...Just wow. Accidents like this are becoming way to common place. I think they highlight the importance of county-based regulations. Mora and San Miguel Counties currently lack the resources to respond to events like these. In such remote areas that lack both manpower and equipment, a pipeline explosion would be extremely dangerous, causing fires that could spread far beyond the accident site itself.



Tue Jun 8, 9:05 pm ET
DARROUZETT, Texas – A Texas Panhandle sheriff says two people are dead from a natural gas pipeline explosion.

Lipscomb County Sheriff James Robertson said in a news release Tuesday that the men were killed shortly after the blast in a remote part of the region.

Three people were injured. One was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Oklahoma City. Two others working near the explosion had injuries not considered life-threatening.

The five men were moving clay from a pit near the pipeline when a bulldozer struck it, causing the explosion.

The blast about 270 miles northeast of Lubbock is the second natural gas line explosion in Texas in as many days.
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ProPublica--Years of Internal BP Probes Warned That Neglect Could Lead to Accidents

by Abrahm Lustgarten and Ryan Knutson, ProPublica - June 7, 2010 10:00 pm EDT

A series of internal investigations over the past decade warned senior BP managers that the company repeatedly disregarded safety and environmental rules and risked a serious accident if it did not change its ways.

The confidential inquiries, which have not previously been made public, focused on a rash of problems at BP's Alaska oil-drilling unit that undermined the company’s publicly proclaimed commitment to safe operations. They described instances in which management flouted safety by neglecting aging equipment, pressured or harassed employees not to report problems, and cut short or delayed inspections in order to reduce production costs. Executives were not held accountable for the failures, and some were promoted despite them.

Similar themes about BP operations elsewhere were sounded in interviews with former employees, in lawsuits and little-noticed state inquiries, and in e-mails obtained by ProPublica. Taken together, these documents portray a company that systemically ignored its own safety policies across its North American operations - from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico to California and Texas.

Tony Hayward, BP's CEO, has committed himself to reform since taking the top job in 2007. Top BP officials would not comment for this story, but spokesman Tony Odone said that in March an independent expert reported that BP has made "significant progress" toward meeting goals set in 2007 in response to a deadly Texas refinery explosion. Odone said the notion that BP has ongoing problems addressing worker concerns is "essentially groundless."

Because of its string of accidents before the recent blowout in the Gulf, BP already faced a possible ban on its federal contracting and on new U.S. drilling leases, several senior former Environmental Protection Agency debarment officials told ProPublica. That inquiry has taken on new significance in light of the Gulf accident. One key question the EPA will consider is whether the company's leadership can be trusted and whether BP's culture can change.

The reports detailing BP's Alaska investigations -- conducted by outside lawyers and an internal BP committee in 2001, 2004 and 2007 -- were provided to ProPublica by a person close to BP who believes the company has not yet done enough to eradicate its shortcomings.

A 2001 report noted that BP had neglected key equipment needed for emergency shutdown, including safety shutoff valves and gas and fire detectors similar to those that could have helped prevent the fire and explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf.

A 2004 inquiry found a pattern of intimidating workers who raised safety or environmental concerns. It said managers were shaving maintenance costs with the practice of "run to failure," under which aging equipment was used as long as possible. Accidents resulted, including the 200,000-gallon Prudhoe Bay pipeline spill in 2006, the largest ever spill on Alaska's North Slope.

During the same period, similar problems surfaced at BP facilities in California and Texas.

In 2002, California officials discovered that BP had falsified inspections of fuel tanks at a Los Angeles-area refinery and that more than 80 percent of the facilities didn't meet requirements to maintain storage tanks without leaks or damage. Inspectors were forced to get a warrant before BP allowed them to check the tanks. The company eventually settled a civil lawsuit brought by the South Coast Air Quality Management District for more than $100 million.

In 2005, an emergency warning system failed before a Texas City refinery exploded in a ball of fire. BP's investigation of that deadly accident--conducted by a committee of independent experts -- found that "significant process safety issues exist at all five U.S. refineries, not just Texas City." It said "instances of a lack of operating discipline, toleration of serious deviations from safe operating practices, and apparent complacency toward serious process safety risk existed at each refinery." BP spokesman Odone said that after the accident the company adopted a six-point plan to update its safety systems worldwide. But last year the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined BP $87 million for failing to make safety upgrades at that same Texas plant.

It is difficult to compare safety records among companies in industries like oil exploration. Some companies drill in harsher environments. And bad luck can play a role. But independent experts say the pervasiveness of BP's problems, in multiple locales and different types of facilities, is striking.

"They are a recurring environmental criminal and they do not follow U.S. health safety and environmental policy," said Jeanne Pascal, a former EPA debarment attorney who led the investigations into BP. "At what point are we going to say we are not going to do business with you any more, bye? None of the other supermajors have an environmental criminal record like they do." More>>>

Resident refuses gas company's right-of-way request to run pipeline

Many of us don't give natural gas pipelines much thought; however, they are an inevitable part of the development process. Unfortunately, allowing a pipeline to be installed across your property is not always a choice. Pipelines inherently pose hazards of their own because they transport such a volatile substance. I have been told by a New Mexico rancher who lives with wells and pipelines on his property, that he is always hitting the pipeline with his plow because companies are only required to install them four inches below the surface.


By Elizabeth Skrapits (Staff Writer)
Published: May 17, 2010
DALLAS TWP. - When the men first came around, Emily Sallitt thought they were utility workers talking about a gas line for her home.

"They said, 'oh, you can't use this gas, it's dirty gas,'" she said. "Then when I looked it up, I said, 'oh my glory, those were the gas men."

And Emily and her husband, Joseph, wanted no part of what they were after.

Chief Gathering LLC, a subsidiary of Dallas, Texas-based Chief Oil & Gas LLC, has been sounding out landowners in Franklin and Dallas townships to see if they are willing to grant the company a right-of-way to run a natural gas pipeline through their properties.

The most productive natural gas well in Pennsylvania isn't worth much unless there's a way to get the gas to market. As drilling companies flock into the state to exploit the gas-rich Marcellus Shale, the need for connections to natural gas pipelines is growing.

The Sallitts' 12-acre property on Upper Demunds Road, less than a mile from the Dallas school district where they taught before retirement, was one of those eyed by Chief for a right-of-way acquisition.

The 1950s-vintage Transco pipeline, owned by Tulsa, Okla.-based Williams Partners LP, is an interstate natural gas pipeline system that runs from south Texas, through the Gulf Coast and up the Eastern Seaboard. It runs through Dallas, near the Sallitts' house.

Part of the Sallitts' backyard is fenced off as a pasture for Emily's horse, Doba. Much of it is woods; they leave it that way for the wild animals, she said.

The gas company would have to clear-cut a strip of the property to lay the pipe, Emily Sallitt said.

"We would have lost all this, all this privacy, part of the horse pasture," she said, indicating the woods separating her property from the neighbors.

The natural gas company drilling Luzerne County's first exploratory wells, Encana Oil & Gas USA Inc., is tapping into the Transco pipeline, which is conveniently close to the Fairmount Township property where one of the wells will be located.

But Chief's planned drilling sites are directly to the north of Luzerne County, miles away from Transco, which is the closest pipeline.

Records from the state Department of Environmental Protection show Chief has permits to drill in 11 counties, including at Springville, Lathrop and Lenox in Susquehanna County and Nicholson in Wyoming County.

Chief has drilled in Lycoming County since 2007, has wells under way in Bradford and Susquehanna counties, and wants to drill in Wyoming County, but not for a couple of months, spokeswoman Kristi Gittins confirmed. Chief has also been purchasing rights-of-way all over Northeastern Pennsylvania and has 170 miles' worth already, she said.

However, the company has not set a definitive plan for a pipeline to tap into the Transco in Dallas, she said.

"There's a whole list of permits and approvals that would have to be received," Gittins said. "And sometimes there are route changes because there's something amiss in the areas. … When we start working in an area, my team does community affairs, and this isn't even on our radar."

Chief wouldn't even begin putting down pipeline until the new sites are drilled and prove worthwhile. Laying pipeline is expensive, and it costs more than $1 million to tap into Transco, she said.

"You don't lay pipeline first, unless you're in an area where you know there has been a lot of drilling and production," Gittins said. More>>>

The New Mexico Independent--Businesses at site of PNM gas leak were not warned of explosive hazard

By Bryant Furlow 5/10/10 12:13 PM
At Albuquerque’s busy Montgomery and Carlisle Blvd. intersection, managers of a hair salon and flower shop expressed shock Saturday over news reports that the PNM work crews that had dug up their parking lot in 2008 were responding to a potentially explosive natural gas pipeline leak.

The leak had been allowed to languish without repair for two months, between May and July 2008, The Independent reported Friday.

“One of the (PNM) guys, he said, ‘let’s see if we blow the place up’,” Ray Lueras told The Independent Saturday. “I thought he was joking but I remember looking at him because he wasn’t laughing.”

Lueras owns the Hairs to You salon, between an adjoining flower shop and the buried pipeline.

“I’d smelled gas in the back and thought there was a leak at the meter, so I called it in,” Albuquerque Wholesale Florist manager Robert Torres said, shaking his head. “Nobody took smoke breaks out back, thank God.”

The Carlisle entrance to the businesses’ parking lot was closed for more than a week while PNM crews worked, both men said.

In 2000, a campfire near a leaking natural gas pipeline southeast of Carlsbad caused an explosion that killed 12 campers, including five children. The following year, a small gas pipeline leak in Santa Fe led to an explosion that leveled a business building after an employee lit a cigarette.

‘There was no precaution’

“They dug it all up, built a big container there and did pipe work and I don’t know what else,” Lueras said. “But they didn’t tell me there was a leak. I’m a little disappointed we weren’t at least told about it, if not warned. What if somebody had gone out there to light a cigarette? There was no precaution.”

The amount of gas from the leak was enough to cause a significant explosive hazard, but according to Lueras and Torres, PNM crews did not explain what they were doing and no barracades warning signs were posted around the work site.

Nine people interviewed by PRC investigators said PNM personnel entered the underground vault around the pipeline without checking oxygen levels and without training for confined space work, according to a September 2009 PRC report. It was also unclear whether or not explosion-proof flashlights were used by the work crew, the report states.

Gas could have escaped into the businesses, an October 2008 PRC report states.

“It’s a little scary,” Torres said Saturday. “I have family and friends come in here all the time. My grandchildren come here.”

Pausing, Torres shook his head again.

“Man, I wouldn’t have come to work,” he said. “It’s not worth my life or my employees’ lives.”

Torres walked along the back of the building Saturday, pointing to asphalt patches where the PNM crews had dug up a swath of the parking lot and around the bases of three gas meters next to the building shared by the businesses.

Some of the crew’s patchwork in the parking lot is visible in satellite imagery at Google Maps, just south of a black dumpster.

Although PNM is subject to $500,000 in fines for violations of the Pipeline Safety Act and state regulations, PNM and Public Regulation Commission (PRC) Pipeline Safety Bureau staff have agreed to a proposed settlement of $66,000 in penalties for the incident, according to PRC records.

PRC Commissioners will review and approve or disapprove the settlement Monday.

“I think they should be fined the whole amount,” Torres said Saturday. “That was not right not to tell us (of the hazard).”

PRC commissioners will take public testimony Monday morning before deciding whether or not to accept the proposed $66,000 settlement worked out between PRC pipeline safety staff and PNM, Albuquerque PRC Commissioner Jason Marks told The Independent.

“Somebody made a decision that we’ll try to hide this,” Marks said. “I don’t know how high it went (but) it’s pretty serious.”

Residents worry about pipeline’s safety

A large apartment complex shares the rear parking lot with the businesses on the corner. More>>>