There was another catastrophic pipeline explosion, this one in Beaver County, Pennsylvania.  It happened early this morning, and the company is saying that “earth movement” caused the rupture that lead to the explosion.

The pipeline was 24 inches in diameter, and the resulting fire destroyed one house and melted vinyl siding on other houses within 100-200 yards of the fire.  It also melted a metal tower for a high tension power line, causing it to collapse and pull down other nearby towers.

The most interesting thing about this is that this pipeline was put into service just eight days ago, on September 3, 2018.  It really makes you wonder about the quality control practices of these pipeline companies.  I know the workers wouldn’t purposefully install a pipeline wrong, but people make mistakes and some of these crews just aren’t experienced with building in mountainous terrain.

On June 15, 2018 a pipeline in Kansas exploded.  Kansas being flat and mostly fields makes it easier to get good photos of the fire.  Here in West Virginia we can see what is visible above the trees, sometimes only from a ridge or two back from the actual location.  This pipeline exploded in a rural area, so there are no injuries.  We haven’t been able to find any information about the size of the pipeline or how long it’s been in operation.

The Leach Xpress Pipeline is 18 months old.  It’s 36 inches in diameter, runs for 160 miles, and pushes 1.5 BCF of gas at 1440 pounds per square inch of pressure.

It just exploded.

911 Emergency services received 37 calls within three minutes of 4:20 am.  The fire burned until about 6:00 am, or 8:30 am, depending on which news report you find.

The burned area is about 10 acres.

This pipeline is pretty similar to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Mountain Valley Pipeline.  It’s smaller, at 36 inches instead of 42 inches, and shorter at 160 miles instead of 303 miles for the MVP and 600 miles for the ACP.  But they will both push the same amount of gas at the same pressure, and they will both run over more mountainous terrain.

This does not make me feel more comfortable to be living within 1000 feet of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline right of way.

Thankfully, this happened in a spot where there were no houses so no one was injured.

The Mariner East 1 pipeline sprung a leak on April 1st, 2017.  The leak was from an 8-inch steel pipe.  The pipeline was shut down, and repairs carried out over the course of several days.

It was a small leak, just 20 barrels of ethane and propane.  No one was injured, and no water was contaminated.

It’s important to note that the company “was informed of the leak”.  Makes it sound like someone other than the company was responsible for discovering the leak.

This is the first pipeline leak we’ve run across this month.  While it’s small, it’s important because people need to know that pipelines leak and that the company doesn’t usually discover the leaks, especially when they’re “small”.  The safety technology they use doesn’t detect the small stuff well.

A natural gas pipeline broke in Providence, Rhode Island last night.  Thankfully, no one was hurt.

The break was in a location where a high pressure (200-300 psi) transmission line connected with a “take station” where the pressure is reduced before the gas is distributed to consumers.

While the gas leaked, there was a haze of gas in the area.  If that haze had ignited, the explosion would have been enormous.

Eyewitnesses said the leak sounded like a jet engine.

It’s worth pointing out that the pipelines that will be crossing West Virginia will be operating at about 1400 psi.

And here I was thinking we’d go a month without running across a major incident involving a natural gas pipeline…..

About two weeks ago there was a pipeline explosion in Texas.

The pipeline was a 36-inch natural gas line.  The explosion was felt for 60 miles, and could be seen for 175 miles.  Sure, that part of Texas is pretty flat, but that’s still pretty big.

Here’s some video from ABC13.

The pipeline is owned by Kinder-Morgan.  The area was very rural, so no lives or property were threatened by this one.