Corrosion cited in pipeline explosion

A corroded pipe has been deemed the culprit of a massive natural gasoline explosion in Sweet Water, AL last December.

A Transco natural gas pipeline ruptured at approximately 3:07 p.m. Dec. 3 with an explosion that could be heard for more than 30 miles while shooting flames nearly 100 feet in the air for over an hour.

The pipeline was shutdown immediately after the failure as firefighters battled the blaze for the next 90 minutes.

“Although we have systems and processes in place to prevent and identify corrosion, our investigation indicated there were multiple factors working in conjunction that led to this problem not being recognized,” said Transco spokesman Chris Stockton. “Extremely corrosive soil conditions, combined with failures in the pipeline’s protective coating and cathodic protection system ultimately weakened the pipe, causing it to rupture.”

Stockton said the rupture forced the company to make several changes in its corrosion control program.

“These changes are designed to more closely monitor levels of pipeline protection from corrosion, assure a higher degree of protection equipment uptime, and provide higher standards for levels of corrosion protection,” he said. “We are also continuing our investigation into this failure to better enhance our corrosion control procedures in the future.”

Williams Gas and Pipeline has also been working under a PHMSA (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration) Corrective Action Order, which details actions required to be completed to ensure the safety of the pipeline prior to putting the pipeline back in service. In addition, he said, the company is taking steps above and beyond regulation to ensure the pipeline is safe.

“All anomalies are being carefully investigated and any metal loss indications will be repaired prior to placing the pipeline back in service,” Stockton said. “Once all anomalies have been repaired, the pipe will be hydrostatically tested, which involves filling the pipe with water and pressure-testing it at considerably higher pressures than our normal operating pressures. Once all of these tests are complete, we will seek PHMSA’s permission to restore the line back to service.”

SOURCE: http://www.demopolistimes.com/2012/02/21/corrosion-cited-in-pipeline-explosion/

The iconic lights that outline the Blatnik Bridge linking Duluth and Superior will go dark and come down later this year during maintenance on the bridge.

The iconic lights that outline the Blatnik Bridge linking Duluth and Superior will go dark and come down later this year during maintenance on the bridge.

Whether they return when the work is complete in 2013 is up in the air.

Corroded, in the way and “failing at an alarming rate,” the more than 200 decorative lights and their wiring have to be removed as part of a $12 million, two-year maintenance project on the bridge that’s slated to start in May, said Beth Petrowske, public affairs coordinator for the Minnesota Department of Transportation in Duluth.

Putting the lights back up and replacing the wiring is estimated to cost $1.2 million. Minnesota generally splits costs with Wisconsin on Blatnik and Bong bridge projects, but the Blatnik’s decorative lights were a project initiated and paid for on the Minnesota side from the beginning back in the 1990s.

That’s the catch in replacing them.

MnDOT is “willing to cover and can commit to our 50 percent” of the replacement cost, or $600,000, said Duluth District Engineer Mike Tardy. But now, in a time of tight budgets and many other pending road projects, MnDOT says it wants Wisconsin — or some other source — to chip in for the other half.

“I understand that the decorative lights on the Blatnik are an important feature for the area,” Tardy said. “Our challenge is that the price tag to replace them is really substantial. The funding has to come from somewhere.”

To be clear, the lights in question do not include traffic lights and navigational beacons — only the bridge’s “aesthetic” lighting.

State Sen. Roger Reinert, DFL-Duluth, has gotten involved in the issue, reaching across the bridge to Superior Mayor Bruce Hagen and, in turn, officials from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation in an attempt to find a solution.

“I was incredulous, (thinking) ‘this can’t be possible,’” Reinert said of when he first heard the lights might be going away. “In terms of Duluth landmarks, I think of the Lift Bridge, Enger Tower and the Blatnik. … The idea of it being gone is just flat-out not OK by me.”

As for WisDOT chipping in money toward the lighting, Chris Ouellette, communications manager for WisDOT’s Northwest Region, said, “We haven’t said yes, but we haven’t said no.

“Our department is in the process of drafting policy for decorative lighting and how funding for that type of project might work,” she said. That discussion is taking place in Madison, she said, and there might be more details to report this week.

Wisconsin Rep. Nick Milroy, D-South Range, said he expects the lighting to be discussed during the annual Superior Days in Madison this week. But he said tight budgets may make it a tough sell.

“I think it’s going to be very difficult,” Milroy said. “It’s something that a lot of people think is an amenity” instead of a necessity.

“When there’s not a lot of money to go around you have to prioritize what’s important,”

Reinert said the goal is for the two states to split costs. But if that doesn’t happen, he said, he and Rep. Kerry Gauthier, DFL-Duluth, have drafted a bill to require MnDOT to find the money to reinstall the lights. Both legislators said that’s an option they don’t want to use.

“We’re hoping that MnDOT will partner with WisDOT to get the money to get those lights back up,” Gauthier said.

The lights

The decorative lights on the Blatnik originated with a letter from Duluth businessman Monnie Goldfine to then-state Sen. Sam Solon in 1991, said longtime MnDOT spokesman John Bray, now retired after three decades with the agency.

“A lit-up Blatnik Bridge would be a symbol of uniting Duluth with Superior and would serve as a sign that we welcome visitors,” Goldfine wrote in another 1991 letter on the topic to city and state officials.

The letter was written as planning was under way for a massive overhaul of the Blatnik Bridge in 1993-94, when the span was completely closed to traffic for months.

The lights were installed and — after a long delay caused by water leaks into the fixtures — they officially debuted on Nov. 21, 1996.

Since that time, they’ve become a familiar sight in the Twin Ports — and they’ve been subjected to a lot of abuse from Mother Nature and passing traffic.

“The lights are exposed to the harshest environmental conditions that there can be: rain, wind, snow, salt that can cause corrosion … vibrations from heavy trucks. It’s pretty intensive maintenance,” Tardy said.

Now the fixtures have to come down to allow for sandblasting and painting of gusset plates this summer. They’ll be saved for possible reuse; the corroded conduit and wiring won’t be.

The annual expense of operating the lights is about $15,000 to $20,000 — also paid for entirely by Minnesota at present, though Tardy said that’s of less concern than splitting the more-significant restoration cost. There’s a chance operating costs could be reduced with the use of LEDs or other, newer lighting technology if the lights are reinstalled.

Tardy said he’s hoping the return of the Blatnik lights is less an “if” and more a matter of “when.”

“I’m optimistic that we’re going to be able to make this work,” Tardy said.

SOURCE: http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/223396/

The Grade II listed Victorian pier is now just one of six still open in Wales

Wales’ second longest pier could face a potential shortfall of £1m for vital maintenance work.

Bangor’s Garth Pier should undergo a 25-year overhaul within the next two years.

But because of its location in the protected marine environment of the Menai Strait, it is estimated that the cost of the work could exceed £2m.

Bangor City Council has only about £1m of that cash, and says it will need help to fill the funding gap.

Council clerk Gwyn Hughes said: “The corroded metal needs to be renewed, replaced perhaps.

“It’s an extreme marine environment here,” he added.

“Corrosion happens, so some of the metal joints need to be treated and renewed, and then all the metalwork underneath needs to be painted.

“It’s a major job and it is complicated by the fact that the pier sticks out into the Menai Strait.

“There’s a marine nature reserve here, there are also mussel beds. Wildlife needs to be protected.”

Discussions with structural engineers have revealed that one option to ensure the environment is safe would involve completely encapsulating the steel structure beneath the pier boardwalk, while work is carried out.

Grant aid

But Mr Hughes confirmed that this route would substantially increase the cost of the scheme, pushing it to about £2m or even more.

The council said it had amassed a fund approaching £1m for the work.

“We have been saving for this for the last 25 years,” said Mr Hughes.

The issue has alarmed supporters, who say they are determined to ensure that the future of the pier is safeguarded.

Glenys Pierce has spent the last 14 years running a tourism and information kiosk on the pier and said she remained passionate about the Victorian structure.

“At the end of the day, it needs to be looked after and nurtured, the same you would your own home and garden,” she argued.

“Yes, it needs money being spent on it – but the rewards from spending that money are phenomenal.

“It is important for the city, and let’s hope that the for the citizens of Bangor, that they too feel the same.”

The issue of maintenance costs is the latest event in a long history for the pier.

Decline and disrepair

It was a child of the Victorian era, first opened to the public in 1896, after being built for the sum of £17,000.

But like many of its counterparts scattered across the coastal towns and resorts of Britain, it fell into disrepair, and closed to the public in the 1970s, with the threat of demolition hanging over it.

However, a massive campaign saw the attraction saved, a huge renovation project undertaken, and the pier reopened in its present form in 1988.

Describing the pier as “the jewel in the crown” of the city, Mrs Pierce said she would campaign if necessary to ensure the structure received the costly attention it needs.

She said as far as she was concerned, there would “never, never” be a return to the pier’s dark days in the 1970s.

“Here we are in 2012, and it is here still – and it will remain here,” she stated.

While Mr Hughes recognised there were murmurs of concern in Bangor, he remained upbeat about the pier’s future.

He said the £1m maintenance pot already in place was “good match funding” for approaches to bodies like the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Welsh government.

“I’m sure the authorities in Wales don’t want to see the pier deteriorating. It’s in good condition now – but you’ve got to plan ahead,” he said.

“I’m fairly confident that we will get funding. I’m confident that the work will be done in the next couple of years.”

SOURCE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-16985287

The request, part of the president's $3.8 trillion plan

Federal pipeline safety programs would get an extra $67 million and nearly 120 new employees under a proposal President Obama announced Monday that brought cheers from safety advocates pushing to address accidents and growing safety concerns.

The request, part of the president’s $3.8 trillion plan, would almost double the number of enforcement agents nationwide, according to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. The increase also would cover improvements from research to accident investigation to information databases, according to an agency news release.

Pennsylvania safety officials and advocates and the national safety group Pipeline Safety Trust all urged Congress to approve the funding, though Republican leaders have said the president’s budget will be dead on arrival there.

Obama’s plan doesn’t provide a comprehensive solution to several key issues as the state’s pipeline system expands to handle the rush of shale gas, several officials said.

“It is helpful, but there are still huge gaps in pipeline safety,” said Myron Arnowitt, Pennsylvania director of Clean Water Action.

The Obama administration has been pushing for safety system upgrades for more than a year in light of deadly explosions in Allentown, Philadelphia and suburban San Francisco.

Pennsylvania has a growing expanse of pipeline from shale gas development and one of the country’s oldest home heating gas transport and distribution systems. Utility and pipeline companies were spending about $800 million annually going into 2011 to beef up the system, in part to meet increasing federal safety demands.

State lawmakers in December passed rules that will allow them to receive federal funding and hire 12 to 15 inspectors. The Public Utility Commission still wants Congress to pass the increase as part of a general need to improve safety, spokeswoman Jennifer Kocher said.

The state has 60,000 miles of pipe, and drillers could add 25,000 miles, according to federal figures and a report from the Nature Conservancy, an Arlington, Va.-based advocacy group. Nationwide, there were 10 pipeline incidents causing six deaths, seven injuries and more than $4.2 million in damage last year, according to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s online database.
SOURCE: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_781486.html

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera

The city of San Francisco took the unusual step Tuesday of asking a judge to force federal natural-gas safety regulators to step up efforts in California, saying the government “abjectly failed” to enforce pipeline laws before and after the 2010 explosion that devastated a San Bruno neighborhood.

At issue in City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, is the performance of the little-known U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Although it is charged with enforcing federal safety law, the agency relies on states to do much of its oversight.

Herrera’s suit says federal officials never set standards and let California’s enforcement dwindle in the years leading up to the September 2010 explosion of a PG&E pipeline in San Bruno.

‘Blind trust in operators’

In its investigative report on the blast, which killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended that the pipeline agency tighten regulations on operators. The board’s chairwoman, Deborah Hersman, said PG&E had “exploited weaknesses in a lax system of oversight, and regulatory agencies that placed a blind trust in operators to the detriment of public safety.”

Herrera’s lawsuit echoes those findings, saying the pipeline agency stood by for more than a decade while the California Public Utilities Commission failed to detect PG&E’s safety problems, questionable pipeline-management practices and shoddy record keeping.

The state agency allowed utilities to police and report their own safety violations in lieu of being fined. The agency has changed its approach since the San Bruno disaster and recently proposed a $16.8 million penalty against PG&E for failing to conduct leak inspections on several miles of gas distribution pipelines in the East Bay.

“In the absence of any meaningful oversight by PHMSA, the CPUC has, for decades, forsaken its duty to enforce federal pipeline safety standards,” the city said in its suit. Under those circumstances, the suit said, “it is not a question of if another pipeline will explode, but a question of when.”

The pipeline safety agency issued a statement Tuesday declining to comment on the lawsuit but stressing its “core” commitment to safety.

“That’s why we devoted hundreds of hours of staff support and technical expertise to the NTSB and the California Public Utilities Commission to understand the San Bruno tragedy,” the agency said.

Failure to monitor

The suit said the federal government’s failures were putting San Franciscans at risk. It is the first time a local government has sought stricter regulation from the pipeline safety agency, said Rick Kessler, a lobbyist for the Pipeline Safety Trust, a nonprofit that focuses on safety improvements.

“If this brings better oversight and enforcement,” he said, “I applaud it.”

The suit seeks a court order to compel federal pipeline safety officials to set performance standards for state regulators who oversee gas transmission lines.

According to the complaint, the U.S. pipeline agency gave California $1.3 million in 2010 to oversee pipeline safety, yet “never meaningfully evaluated” how the money was spent or measured the effectiveness of the state’s program.

Federal officials knew California’s enforcement efforts had been understaffed since 1998, the suit said, resulting in a small proportion of federal funding being allocated to the state. Inspections became so infrequent by 2006 that the pipeline agency warned the Public Utilities Commission that California was jeopardizing public safety.

The explosion of a gas distribution pipeline in Cupertino in August, in which a condominium was destroyed, is evidence that the federal government hasn’t done enough to strengthen its regulatory efforts since the San Bruno disaster, the suit said.

That explosion happened because of a leak in a notoriously brittle type of 1970s-era plastic pipe, which the government recommended in 1998 that pipeline operators replace. Regulators have never ordered companies to do so, though.

Giving up authority

The federal agency, “for all practical purposes, has allowed gas pipeline operators like PG&E to regulate themselves and, in doing so, has improperly delegated its authority to enforce federal pipeline safety standards to those operators,” the suit said.

Although Herrera earlier threatened to sue the Public Utilities Commission as well, he said Tuesday that the state agency has improved its oversight of PG&E since 2010.

“We are participating in the administrative process to make sure the CPUC follows through on its pledge,” Herrera said in an interview.

PG&E had no comment on the suit except to emphasize actions it has taken since the San Bruno explosion to try to make its gas system safer.

SOURCE: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/14/MNKU1N7J3D.DTL#ixzz1mZJosbrD

A jack supports a floor beam in the crawlspace beneath one of the Santee houses

A design flaw that could affect about 700 homes in Santee, CA has some residents on edge.

Homes in the northwest end of Santee constructed in the 1970s were built to be supported on jacks, which are now starting to rust and wear.

“If it’s dangerous, they need to know about it,” said contractor Art Angelo.

Angelo, who repairs homes, said he found the problem so alarming his company went to the city of Santee to show them the potential hazards.

“I’d say about 90 percent or better of the support that’s holding the house up isn’t there,” he said.

The houses were built by a company called Princess Homes that is no longer in business. 10News found that Princess also built homes in nearby San Carlos and Poway.

A new city policy is in place where homeowners in that area of Santee cannot get a permit to add on to the home or repair the foundation until a civil or structural engineer looks at the home.

Eric Modeen just bought his Santee home and now fears he will have to spend thousands of dollars to fix the foundation.

“I’m nervous,” he said. “We just purchased this house a few months ago. The seller spent about $10,000 to have the foundation repaired, and I assumed this was going to be something I wasn’t going to have to worry about.”

New signs of rust may mean he will have to do more work.

About 60 to 150 jacks are typically underneath each home affected. The city of Santee has created a 12-member task force to prevent any of the homes from collapsing.

SOURCE: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/feb/13/10news-700-santee-homes-supported-jacks/

The need is acute in Northeastern states with older systems like New York, which needs $29.7 billion worth of improvements, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer said Wednesday. But he said that price is a “just a drop in the bucket” compared to the higher cost of continuing to upgrade parts of sewer and water systems when emergencies strike. He is pushing a bill that would counter planned funding cuts in the federal transportation bill now being negotiated in Washington.

“EPA found that the nation’s 53,000 community water systems and 21,400 not-for-profit, non-community water systems will need to invest an estimated $334.8 billion between 2007 and 2027,” stated the federal Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey and Assessment, which is updated every four years.

The National Association of Counties’ 2008 report estimated the need for water and sewer upgrades at $300 billion to $450 billion nationwide and the federal stimulus project provided just a fraction of that as the recession reduced local governments’ revenues.

“This is a very serious concern,” said Carolyn Berndt of the National League of Cities. “Many communities have a long-term plan to replace all their underground water infrastructure, but even if they do a couple percentages of pipes a year, it’s still going to take over 100 years for some of them to replace it all.”

She said local governments have been paying more than 95 percent of the cost of water and sewer upgrades since the 1990s as federal aid has declined. Schumer said federal aid covered 75 percent of local costs in the 1980s and 1970s.

“It’s a huge undertaking,” Berndt said. “Some of these pipes are 100 years old. That’s why they continue to see water main breaks.”

The group supports Schumer’s effort, which comes as Congress works to cut spending.

SOURCE: http://online.wsj.com/article/AP219f0f0323df453694748991f44b896d.html

State regulators are moving toward stricter oversight of natural gas pipelines

State regulators are moving toward stricter oversight of natural gas pipelines, though officials say that effort began before the Allentown explosion that killed five people one year yesterday.

“We’ve been really taking a close look, partly because of some of the tragic incidents, but also because of the expansion of Marcellus Shale in the state,” said Jennifer Kocher, spokeswoman for thePennsylvania Public Utility Commission.

The PUC is currently accepting public comment on a proposal that would require natural gas utilities to annually submit pipeline replacement and performance plans.

If the new rules — proposed on Nov. 10 — take effect, utilities with intrastate operating revenues of more than $40 million would have to file plans this spring or summer with final approval scheduled for late 2012 or early 2013.

The plans basically require utilities to submit replacement time frames for aging pipes as well as updates on damage prevention and corrosion control efforts.

The PUC said it is also enhancing “frost patrol” reviews — winter surveys that gas utilities conduct to assess how safely pipes can endure freezing temperatures — to demand more frequent and detailed updates.

The state said it regularly reviews safety protocols, though it acknowledged the Feb. 9, 2011, explosion added urgency.

The explosion, which leveled an entire block of homes on North 13th Street, is believed to have resulted from a break in a UGI Utilities natural gas main.

The PUC said a surge in natural gas drilling relating to Marcellus Shale as well as a need to bring state standards in better compliance with evolving federal regulations influenced the changes.

Reading-based UGI said it supports the state revisions. The company said it began upgrading procedures before the blast, though it admitted making further improvements, such as conducting more comprehensive leak surveys, after the explosion.

That coincides with the company’s accelerated timeframe for replacing cast-iron pipe with high-density plastic or coated steel, UGI spokesman Joseph Swope said. 

“We have been aggressive,” Swope said. “We have accelerated those plans.”

Other nearby utilities said the explosion prompted a review of safety protocols, though none said they changed policy directly because of the Allentown blast.

PECO Gas spokesman Ben Armstrong said the company, which serves Bucks, Montgomery, and other counties, spends about $80 million a year to maintain its natural gas system.

Armstrong said PECO conducts walking surveys on all transmission pipelines every two months, leak inspections every six months, and annual inspection of valves, among other reviews.

“None of the procedures were revised directly because to the incidents in Allentown or Philadelphia,” Armstrong said, referring to another explosion last year that killed a Philadelphia Gas Works employee. “We have a vigorous maintenance and inspection system in place.”

Elizabethtown Gas, a subsidiary of AGL Resources serving Warren and Hunterdon counties, said system upgrades are ongoing irrespective of the blast.

Spokesman Duane Bourne said Elizabethtown is completing a $108 million improvement plan approved by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities that would replace 70 miles of aging cast-iron pipe across its New Jersey service area. Work began in 2009.

SOURCE: http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/breaking-news/index.ssf/2012/02/pennsylvania_public_utility_co.html

Eighty-three years old at the time, the pipe was slightly below the average age of the cast-iron pipelines running through the city.

Out of about 72 miles of cast-iron pipe in Allentown, the average pipeline age falls between 90 and 120 years, according to Mayor Ed Pawlowski.

One year after the Feb. 9, 2011, blast that claimed five lives and destroyed eight houses, Pawlowski said he thinks UGI is still not doing enough to speed up replacing the aging pipes.

The public utility company told a special U.S. Senate committee last year it would take 40 years to replace all of the city’s cast-iron pipes.

UGI officials say they have stepped up the pace at which they are replacing cast-iron pipe with high-density plastic in Allentown and the rest of the Lehigh Valley.

The company replaced seven miles of city gas main in 2011, UGI spokesman Joe Swope said. That’s more than the six miles it planned to replace, which itself is more than twice what the company had replaced the year before.

In 2012, UGI plans to replace seven and a half miles of pipeline, Swope said. That would leave about 64.5 miles of cast-iron pipe in the city.

But replacing pipeline costs about $650,000 per mile, and UGI officials have previously said they cannot replace gas lines at this pace every year.

Even if they stuck to six miles per year, Pawlowski said, it would take more than a decade to replace it all, which the mayor said is too long.

If undisturbed, cast-iron pipe can operate for years without problems. But as they age, they become less resilient and more susceptible to leaks, cracks and pressure from street traffic.

The new pipe installed by UGI is made of a sturdier high-density plastic, Swope said, which is often sleeved through the existing cast-iron pipe to create an additional layer of protection.

There are 217 miles of cast-iron pipe in the Lehigh Valley. That does not include 13 miles worth that were replaced in 2011, Swope said.

Since most of the Valley’s cast-iron pipeline falls outside Allentown, this is a regional concern, not a city issue, Pawlowski said.

As of 2010, UGI’s three utilities in Pennsylvania have 11,627.49 miles of pipeline statewide, according to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission.

Of that, 1,827.197 miles, or 15.71 percent, are either cast iron or bare steel, which PUC spokeswoman Jennifer Kocher described as ”risky pipeline.”

Swope said that since 2000, UGI has replaced more than 290 miles of cast-iron pipe systemwide, and the company spent $43 million on natural gas main and service replacements last year alone.

It will probably cost UGI about $4.9 million to replace the seven and a half miles of cast-iron pipeline it plans to replace this year in Allentown, Swope said.

Among the challenges in replacing older pipeline is finding construction crews qualified for the work and working with municipalities to determine which mains should be replaced in which order, he said.

There are 60,418 miles of pipeline throughout the state, according to the Pipeline Safety Trust, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group

Of that, 47,051 are for gas distribution and service, 10,834 are gas transmission and 2,532 are hazardous liquid, according to the organization.

Nationally, 31 percent of gas distribution lines were installed prior to new regulations in the 1970s, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

SOURCE: http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/allentown/index.ssf/2012/02/allentown_ugi_differ_over_whet.html

UAA professor Matt Cullin explains where the new corrosion lab will be located.

BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. announced Monday that it was donating $1 million to the University of Alaska Anchorage to help create a lab to study the effects of corrosion on pipe metals.

The gift will pay for the entire BP Asset Integrity and Corrosion Lab, according to Matt Cullin, who will be the director of the new facility. The money will also help cover some of the first year’s operational expenses.

“It’s a really quite a nice gift,” said Cullin, a UAA assistant professor of mechanical engineering.

The relatively low cost for the lab, less than $1 million, is due to its location in a building that already exists, the Engineering Building. It will be installed in space vacated by the school’s anatomy lab, which has moved to new quarters.

“It’s already set up as a laboratory,” Cullin said. “That’s saving us a ton of money.”

A statement from UAA said the lab will be the first of its kind in Alaska. It will train engineering students and make it possible for the university to do more corrosion research, testing and training.

Knowing more about corrosion and how to prevent it is highly important to Alaska, said Tom Barrett, the president of Alyeska Pipeline Service Company. Addressing a conference of corrosion engineers at the Hotel Captain Cook on Monday, where the gift was announced, Barrett said at the present time, “Keeping up with corrosion technology means getting on a plane and going down to Houston.”

Barrett, a retired Coast Guard admiral and deputy secretary of the Department of Transportation in the Bush and Obama administrations, called corrosion “a creeping disease” and a “constant threat” to the 35-year old-pipeline that carries the oil on which Alaska’s economy is largely dependent.

Keeping the aging pipeline incident-free is a major priority, Barrett said. “The public perception is that there is no room for failure,” he said. “The worst thing that can happen is for oil to spill into Prince William Sound. That makes the job of corrosion management critical.”

A “pinhole leak” due to corrosion in a difficult-to-inspect section of pipe shut down operations for four days in January of 2011. Each day cost the state $18.5 million, according to the state Department of Revenue.

Criminal convictions of BP have forced the company to adopt new environmental and anticorrosion policies for its aging North Slope infrastructure. Its failed corrosion efforts came in for harsh criticism by Congress in 2006.

Barrett expressed hope that the new lab would help catch leaks before they happen. “There are eight or 10 different ways corrosion operates,” he told the conventioneers. “Multiple mechanisms can cause it and they are not well understood.”

Cullin said the new lab would have the ability to experiment with corrosion caused by carbon dioxide, a particularly prominent problem on Alaska’s North Slope.

“We’ll be able to measure corrosion rates and test inhibitor effectiveness right here in Alaska,” he said.

Such tests are largely performed out of state now, Cullin said.

Work on the lab will begin this spring. UAA expects it to open in the fall.

House Before the Explosion

On Dec. 19, 2010, the home that Thuan Nguyen shared with his family in Chantilly, VA exploded. More than a year later, regulators still have not been able to pinpoint an exact cause for the disaster.

In a November 2011 report, the Virginia State Corporation Commission released disturbing new details about the gas explosion, citing Washington Gas for 11 probable violations. However, they also say they’re unable to determine the exact cause of the decision because the utility did not take required measurements.

In the report, the SCC says that “the gas service line to the home experienced severe corrosion.” The line, installed in 1966, had never been upgraded, and photos in the report show holes and severe corrosion in the lines.

The report also says that the corrosion resulted in a major leak across the street from the home on Lees Corner Drive, but they only concluded that the leak might have caused the explosion. Since Washington Gas didn’t record required leak detection measurements, though, the commission can’t be sure.

House After the Explosion

The SCC report also says that a customer-owned fuel line that may not have been capped properly could have also caused the explosion. The line in question once led to a gas stove on the second story of the house, but previous owners had put it behind a wall during renovations.

Washington Gas declined to comment because the utility is being sued by the Nguyen’s insurance company. Nguyen, in the meantime, has not been contacted by the company.

“I hear no word from Washington Gas,” he said.

Regardless of cause or blame, residents of the Chantilly neighborhood say they live in fear and believe it could happen again, while all the while, Washington Gas tells them that its investigation into the explosion continues 14 months later.

“Three-quarters of this development is all gas,” Leeds says. “It doesn’t take that long to investigate anything.”

SOURCE: http://www.wjla.com/articles/2012/02/chantilly-house-gas-explosion-investigation-renders-few-answers-72157.html

The Ohio Power Siting Board, the body that regulates major utility projects in Ohio, rejected the application for the Marcellus Lateral Pipeline more than a year ago. Kinder Morgan, a pipeline developer, owner and operator out of Houston, has made no official moves on the project since it submitted that application in November 2010.

Marcellus Lateral Pipeline Map

The 16-inch pipeline was to snake 240 miles under Ohio, from the border with the West Virginia panhandle to a connection with larger pipeline just west of Toledo. It was designed to carry natural gas liquids from the Marcellus Shale formation, a layer of rock rich in oil and gas that sits underneath much of western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and the border counties of Ohio.

Its path would have crossed 15 Ohio counties, including Muskingum, Coshocton, Knox, Morrow, Marion, Crawford and Sandusky.

This past spring, the Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune and Mount Vernon News quoted a Kinder Morgan spokesman as saying the project still was a go and to expect construction by the end of 2011. The company would first need to get approval from the siting board, which it has not sought, a board spokesman said.

When asked to comment about the project’s status, Kinder Morgan spokeswoman Emily Mir wrote: “We continue to evaluate a number of projects in the Marcellus area but do not have any definite information at this time on the lateral project other than as part of our re-evaluation we are withdrawing our application for the project.”

She declined to answer further questions.

Dale Arnold, director of energy policy for the Ohio Farm Bureau, had been conducting educational meetings with bureau members on pipeline issues in advance of the Marcellus Lateral Project.

He said the wording of Kinder Morgan’s statement suggests it is moving on to something else. Arnold said he has seen alternative energy projects (also governed by the siting board) pulled in the same manner.

“From my experience on work with wind and solar projects, when a company withdraws an application, they are looking at something entirely different,” he said.

The state is “still considering the application active, but just delayed,” said Matt Butler, spokesman for the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, which oversees the siting board.

As of Friday, Kinder Morgan had made no filing to withdraw its application, which would close the case.

The application was deemed incomplete in 2011 because it failed to include ecological data and enough detail on an alternative route.

Butler said the commission last heard from Kinder Morgan in the fall of 2011. The company relayed it was evaluating options at that point, he said.

Local leaders in the path of the pipeline are curious about Kinder Morgan’s plans.

Jenny Vermillion, a commissioner from Sandusky County, said her office had tried contacting the company in December, but had no success.

Jim Porter and Steve Douglass, commissioners in Muskingum and Guernsey counties, respectively, say they haven’t heard anything new about the project.

“They have not talked to us for a year of maybe longer,” Douglass said.

Douglass said Kinder Morgan had almost daily contact with Guernsey’s county engineer when the Rockies Express Pipeline, a multi-billion dollar interstate pipeline that was built in Ohio in 2009, was in construction.

The pipeline plan was announced by Kinder Morgan in April 2010. At that time, the timeline called for construction to begin in July 2011 and finish one year later.

In a year-end report to investors, filed a month after its application was submitted to the power siting board, Kinder Morgan talked of the need to “continue to pursue commercial agreements with shippers.”

The company, according to an October 2010 investor presentation, was seeking commitments from producers that they would use the lateral. Combined, Kinder Morgan was waiting for a promise of at least 25 million barrels per day for 10 years before it moved forward.

Richard Kinder, chairman and CEO of the company, told analysts during a conference call earlier this month about no fewer than five projects — costing more than half a billion dollars — slated to improve the company’s liquid products transportation. No mention was made of the Marcellus Lateral.

Its biggest investment this year is likely to be the expected closing of a $38 billion deal to buy rival El Paso. El Paso operates a gas pipeline near Glouster that was the source of an explosion that destroyed three homes and a barn and damaged a second barn in November.

SOURCE: http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/article/BA/20120128/NEWS01/201280305/-520-million-natural-gas-pipeline-project-doubt?odyssey=nav%7Chead

These spherical clusters are made up of uranium and oxygen atoms. New work shows that in seawater, they can remain stable in solution or as nanoparticles. Credit: Ginger Sigmon, University of Notre Dame

Japan used seawater to cool nuclear fuel at the stricken Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant after the tsunami in March 2011 — and that was probably the best action to take at the time, says Professor Alexandra Navrotsky of the University of California, Davis.

But Navrotsky and others have since discovered a new way in which seawater can corrode nuclear fuel, forming uranium compounds that could potentially travel long distances, either in solution or as very small particles. The research team published its work Jan. 23 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“This is a phenomenon that has not been considered before,” said Alexandra Navrotsky, distinguished professor of ceramic, earth and environmental materials chemistry. “We don’t know how much this will increase the rate of corrosion, but it is something that will have to be considered in future.”

Japan used seawater to avoid a much more serious accident at the Fukushima-Daiichi plant, and Navrotsky said, to her knowledge, there is no evidence of long-distance uranium contamination from the plant.

Uranium in nuclear fuel rods is in a chemical form that is “pretty insoluble” in water, Navrotsky said, unless the uranium is oxidized to uranium-VI — a process that can be facilitated when radiation converts water into peroxide, a powerful oxidizing agent.

Peter Burns, professor of civil engineering and geological sciences at the University of Notre Dame and a co-author of the new paper, had previously made spherical uranium peroxide clusters, rather like carbon “buckyballs,” that can dissolve or exist as solids.

In the new paper, the researchers show that in the presence of alkali metal ions such as sodium — for example, in seawater — these clusters are stable enough to persist in solution or as small particles even when the oxidizing agent is removed.

In other words, these clusters could form on the surface of a fuel rod exposed to seawater and then be transported away, surviving in the environment for months or years before reverting to more common forms of uranium, without peroxide, and settling to the bottom of the ocean. There is no data yet on how fast these uranium peroxide clusters will break down in the environment, Navrotsky said.

SOURCE:  http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-seawater-corrode-nuclear-fuel.html

Refueling at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport

Inspectors have uncovered risks in the aircraft refueling process at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. The inspectors see a potential disaster in the quality of the fuel.

The Bermuda Department of Civil Aviation, where most Russian airliners are registered, has identified impurities that could lead to microbial corrosion in the fuel used at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. Such a defect could trigger a spontaneous engine shutdown.

The inspectors believe that the cause of the corrosion is an old pipeline built in 1974. Aircraft fuel is distributed from a tank from that era. Since then, airport technicians have repeatedly inspected the fuel reservoir and performed the required scheduled maintenance but the inside of the pipe has accumulated a lot of dross over the decades, which affects the quality of the fuel. Therefore, the fuel that flows from the tank is usually dirtier than the fuel that flows in, said one expert.

Bermuda aviation authorities have sent a warning notification about the dangers of using this fuel to the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya), which is to resolve the situation. Rosaviatsiya officials found five cases of spontaneous engine shutdown in aircraft based at airports in the region over the past few years. The last such incident occurred on November 15. Bermuda officials believe that all these incidents are connected with flights from Sheremetyevo airport since no such incident has been recorded with aircraft from Vnukovo or Domodedovo airports.

At Sheremetyevo airport, journalists were advised to contact representatives of the fuel suppliers. TNK-BP insisted that it strictly observes fuel standards, fully complies with all applicable regulations, and has received no complaints from any airline on fuel quality.

The two MATCOR products nominated were “The Mitigator” and MATCOR’s “Kynex” connection.  Here is a brief summary:

• Kynex

Kynex Connection by MATCOR

Kynex is a unique injection molding technology used to connect a MMO/Ti wire anode to a positive anode header cable, providing a more robust connection than conventional connection technology.

The prior connection technology consisted of manually applied polyolefin heat shrinks as the outer layer—depending on the connection design employed, additional layers of sealants might be applied prior to the use of the heat shrink. These multi-step connections are all manually applied with little process control.

Kynex uses Kynar pellets injected at elevated temperatures and pressures into a mold around the anode wire and cable to provide an automated connection using the industries’ most chemically inert materials to provide a better connection.

• The Mitigator

The Mitigator by MATCOR

The Mitigator is the pipeline industry’s first and only engineered gradient control wire packaged solution for AC Mitigation. Gradient control wires are the most commonly used technology for mitigating high levels of induced AC on pipelines in shared right of ways with overhead AC transmission lines.

Historically, pipeline companies would use either zinc ribbon or bare copper as a grounding wire running parallel to the pipeline. To improve the performance of the grounding wire, it is common to use a backfill material. The Mitigator provides a factory-packaged product that combines the copper wire with a special backfill packaged in an inert fabric housing ready to install.

To become this year’s recipient of the  MP Reader’s Choice Corrosion Innovation of the Year Awards we need your vote.

Follow this link, and scroll down to the online form…select Kynex as #1 and Mitigator as your #2 selection – then hit the submit button.  We would really appreciate your support.

If you are a LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook user and would like to be an Ambassador for MATCOR, please share this posting to your social media network.

Voting ends February 15, 2012.

Whether vessels and piping for high-level radioactive waste in the plant will corrode is an issue raised by DOE scientist Donald Alexander in an unresolved Differing Professional Opinion in May. The defense board also has been evaluating wear issues for the past nine months.

The defense board sent a letter to DOE on Friday asking for a briefing within 45 days to provide confidence that the vitrification plant will operate safely and reliably for 40 years.

It noted that DOE, with contractor Bechtel National, is developing a course of action to address wear design issues.

“However, the current pace of the contractor’s efforts to close the issues does not support timely resolution,” said a defense board staff report that accompanied the letter.

Some of the vessels in question are scheduled to be installed at the vitrification plant in August and modification will become progressively more difficult and costly after the vessels are closed and installed, the report said.

The $12.2 billion vitrification plant is being built to turn radioactive waste left from past weapons production of plutonium at Hanford into a stable glass form for disposal.

Much of the piping and many of the vessels in the plant will be in areas called black cells that will be too highly radioactive for workers to enter once waste processing begins. Consequently, their design is required to be maintenance-free for 40 years.

“Component failure due to wear … could stop waste processing for indefinite periods, resulting in significant extensions in the time required to accomplish the facility mission,” the defense board letter said. “The existing design margins offer little or no flexibility for future operations or the opportunity to extend the life of the plant, if required.”

Experimental testing to validate the wear model was limited and the results were flawed, said the defense board letter.

The design wear rates were derived mainly from information found in literature, including from experimental studies performed using slurries and conditions not representative of vitrification plant processes, the letter said. Assumptions to apply information to the vitrification plant were not adequately validated, the letter said.

Project officials have said that the wear models are conservative but have not substantiated that with an analysis, the letter said. The defense board said it found wear allowances provided in the design of some vessels and the pulse jet mixers are not conservative.

The pulse jet mixers are designed to operate like turkey basters, sucking up a slurry of waste and shooting it back out, to keep waste mixed in vessels without relying on moving parts that would require maintenance.

Experimental testing that was done on mixing vessel erosion collected data that lacked a discernible trend and displayed physically unrealistic results, the letter said.

“The Department of Energy remains fully committed to safety at this important facility, including the safety of our workers and the public,” said DOE spokeswoman Lindsey Geisler.

Information from the defense board will be used as DOE further develops and implements action to address erosion and corrosion of piping, vessels and pulse jet mixers, she said.

SOURCE: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/01/24/2363660/board-raises-issue-about-corrosion.html

PG&E Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Anthony Earley

Acknowledging that the company’s reputation is “in tatters,” PG&E’s new Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Anthony Earley announced Thursday the utility will spend $400 million over the next two years to improve its electrical and natural gas infrastructure.

Earley, who took charge of PG&E in August, spent an hour with the Editorial Board of The Tribune outlining the changes he plans to make to restore customer trust in the utility in the aftermath of the deadly natural gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno and questions about the seismic safety of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.

“We have to delight our customers,” he said. “Our reputation is in such tatters that we cannot afford to just satisfy our customers.”

Earley estimated it will take three to five years to restore trust in the utility “one customer, one constituency at a time.”

He also met with Diablo Canyon employees and urged them not to become complacent about safety.

Earley said the utility plans to hire a new chief nuclear officer who will focus solely on Diablo Canyon. Current chief nuclear officer John Conway also oversees electrical generation and splits his time between Diablo Canyon and company headquarters in San Francisco.

The new nuclear officer will be stationed at Diablo Canyon and will fill an intermediary position between Conway and plant manager Jim Becker. Earley did not say when the position would be filled, but said the utility is looking at candidates both inside and outside the company.

While management of the utility’s largest asset, Diablo Canyon, is ranked among the best in the nation, the company’s level of customer satisfaction, distribution system maintenance and speed of service are among the third and fourth quartiles of the industry, Earley said.

Chief among PG&E’s woes is the September 2010 pipeline explosion in San Bruno that killed eight people. Investigations have since revealed that the company’s pipeline record keeping was a shambles; the utility just recently admitted further gaps in its pipeline survey maps.

“As the San Bruno tragedy showed, if you don’t invest in infrastructure, you are going to have very serious problems,” he said. PG&E does not deliver natural gas in San Luis Obispo County; Southern California Gas Co. does.

Concerning Diablo Canyon, seismic safety and storage of highly radioactive used reactor fuel are two of the community’s biggest concerns. The utility is in the midst of performing $64 million in seismic studies to determine the earthquake potential of the faults surrounding the plant.

Earley said he supports the recommendations of a federal committee that has proposed the establishment of several temporary regional storage sites to take spent fuel from the nation’s 104 nuclear reactors. With abandonment of plans to build a federal repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, Diablo Canyon’s spent fuel will be stored onsite for the foreseeable future.

Citing the nuclear industry’s need to coordinate with federal regulators, Earley declined to make any promises that PG&E would lower the density of fuel assemblies stored in Diablo Canyon’s spent fuel pools by accelerating their transfer to dry casks. The pools are near their storage capacity, and PG&E has considered as a safety precaution reducing the density — possibly as low as 600 assemblies per pool — but not to their original, low-density configuration of 270 assemblies.

Earley also wouldn’t promise that the utility would meet a summer deadline to sign over property it owns in Wild Cherry Canyon behind Avila Beach to create a 65 percent addition to Montaña de Oro State Park.

“The concept is great,” he said, but added he has not had enough time to get up to speed on the project.

PG&E is the largest private employer in San Luis Obispo County with 1,500 employees. Approximately 1,400 of these work at Diablo Canyon. The utility has nearly 15 million customers in Northern and Central California.

SOURCE: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2012/01/19/1914608/pge-chairman-announces-improvements.html

The steam-blurred photos taken by remote control Thursday found none of the reactor’s melted fuel but confirmed stable reactor temperature and showed no major damage or ruptures caused by the earthquake last March, said Junichi Matsumoto, spokesman for the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co.

TEPCO workers inserted the endoscope — an industrial version of the kind of endoscope doctors use —through a hole in the beaker-shaped containment vessel at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant’s No. 2 reactor, hoping the first look inside since the crisis would help them better assess reactor conditions and make repairs.

Results of the 70-minute operation were mixed.

Some parts that were photographed were not identifable, and experts are still trying to identify what the photos show, Matsumoto said. Radiation was apparent as it interferred with the electronic device and was visible as static on the images.

The photos also showed inner wall of the container heavily deteriorated after 10 months of exposure to high temperature and humidity, he said.

‘Given the harsh environment that we had to operate, we did quite well. It’s a first step,’ Matsumoto said. ‘But we could not spot any signs of fuel, unfortunately.’

He said it would take more time and a better technology to get to the melted fuel, most of which has fallen straight down into the area that the endoscope could not reach. TEPCO hopes to use the endoscope to look inside the two other reactors that had meltdowns but that also would require customization of the equipment and further reduction of radiation levels.

Better assessment will help workers know how best to plug holes and cracks in the containment vessel — a protective chamber outside the core — to contain radiation leaks and gradually work toward dismantling the reactors.

Three of six reactors at the Fukushima plant melted down after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out the plant’s cooling systems and set off the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

TEPCO and nuclear officials have said that melted fuel probably fell to the bottom of the core in each unit, most likely breaching the bottom of the core and falling into the primary containment vessel, some dropping to its concrete floor.

Experts have said those are simulation results and that exact location and condition of the fuel could not be known until they have a first-hand observation inside.

The probe Thursday successfully recorded the temperature inside the containment vessel at 44.7 Celsius (112 F), confirming it stayed below the boiling point and qualifying a ‘cold shutdown state,’ the stable condition that the government had declared in December despite skepticism from experts.

The probe failed to find the water surface, which indicate the water sits at lower-than-expected levels inside the primary containment vessel and questions the accuracy of the current water monitors, Matsumoto said.

The government has said that it would take 40 years until the Fukushima plant is fully decommissioned.

SOURCE: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/displayarticle.asp?xfile=data/international/2012/January/international_January715.xml&section=international&col=

Gary Deaves, 48, an Associated British Ports (ABP) mechanic at Ipswich Docks died from head injuries after the tyre he was removing exploded in 2010.

Mr Deaves, of Ipswich, was injured as he removed the wheel from a 1979 Hyster Challenger truck for maintenance.

The accident happened on 30 March 2010 at the ABP workshop on Cliff Quay.

An ABP safety officer said it was the first case of this sort the company had heard of.

Brain injuries
The inquest heard the tyre exploded, propelling the wheel off the axle of the vehicle, which was raised off the ground.

Mr Deaves was treated for head and brain injuries at Ipswich Hospital and later at Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, but died on 9 May 2010.

Health and Safety Executive inspector David Gregory told Ipswich Coroner’s Court that although there were “always alternatives” the “likely scenario” which he believed was “that the flange ring [of the wheel] became detached because of age and corrosion.”

He said the explosion would not have happened if the tyres had been deflated, but that it was not standard practice to do this before they were removed.

Andrew Bowley, ABP’s safety manager, told the court it was now standard procedure to deflate all tyres before removing wheels from axles.

Mr Bowley’s written statement was read out by the coroner: “In my 37 years, I’ve never known rims come off like this.”

The court also heard from Mark Betts, who was working on the truck with Mr Deaves, who said he “saw no problem with the wheels” before they started removing them.

They had already taken two of the truck’s wheels before the accident happened.

The inquest continues.

SOURCE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-16586243