Pipeline accidents prompt training

More than 500 emergency officials and excavators from four different counties were squeezed into one banquet hall Wednesday evening, all eager to take part in a pipeline safety training session.

For most, this was not their first training session in pipeline safety. And, it will not be their last. The recent increase in pipeline accidents across the country, killing more than a dozen people, has raised a number of concerns for the National Transportation Safety Board.

Gene Heinlein has served on the Blumfield Township Fire Rescue for 35 years. He attended the session at the Horizons Conference Center in Saginaw with Jeff Bierlein who has served with him for the past 25 years. The two are familiar with the discussion at these types of training sessions but never miss a chance to attend one. Both said they have never experienced a pipeline explosion.

Paradigm Liaison Services, LLC provided the compliance training programs on behalf of the participating pipeline operators.

Paradigm Instructor Ken Wilkerson said the session educates those who may come in contact with a pipeline including excavators, firefighters, emergency medical services, law enforcement officials and 911 dispatchers.

“In the event they are responding to a pipeline incident they need to know how to do that safely,” Wilkerson said.

He said the company holds training sessions in 38 to 40 states on behalf of nearly 400 pipeline, transmission, gathering and distribution operators nationwide. Some of the program topics included pipeline purpose and reliability, safety initiatives, line pressure hazards, product hazards and characteristics, leak recognition and response and emergency response basics. Wilkerson also used video to portray the seriousness of what a pipeline accident scenario looks like.

There are over 2.4 million miles of pipelines in the U.S. made up of liquid production, gathering and transmission lines; gas production; gathering, storage and transmission lines; and gas distribution lines. According to the 2011 Paradigm Emergency Official Manual, pipeline operators in Midland County are Breitburn Management LLC, Merit Energy Co. and TransCanada/Great Lakes Gas Transmission Company. Bay County operators are Breitburn Management LLC, Buckeye Partners, LP and Enbridge (US) Inc. Pipeline operators in Saginaw County include Buckeye Partners, LP, Enbridge (US) Inc, Merit Energy Co. and TransCanada/Great Lakes Gas Transmission Company.

The most recent fatal gas explosions took place in Allentown, Pa. and Philadelphia. Last September a pipeline explosion killed eight people in San Bruno, Calif.

Pipeline accidents currently under investigation by the NTSB include:

* An oil spill from a pipeline owned by a Canadian company sent an estimated 820,000 to 1 million gallons into the Kalamazoo River near Marshall in late July 2010.

* A natural gas pipeline in the Texas Panhandle that exploded last June after it was hit by a bulldozer. Two men were killed.

* A pipeline leak in Romeoville, Ill., last September sent hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil into an industrial park. The pipeline had to shut down, interrupting the flow of oil to Midwest refineries and spiking up regional gas price.

* A natural gas pipeline that ruptured near Palm City, Fla., in May 2009, injuring three people.

For those people wishing to know more about the National Pipeline Mapping System go to http://www.npms.phmsa.dot.gov

Source: http://www.ourmidland.com/news/article_23fbd355-d23b-53a4-9016-6befd029b24a.html