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Pipeline explosion

J

JD Farmer

Member
This morning I was here in my house when a loud boom sounded and the house felt it. I knew it was bad.....and the phone rang shortly. It was my son who lives 3 miles from me on top of the ridge(I'm in the valley, told me I need to get up here and see this...

Happened near a town of Summerfield, Ohio and Carlisle, Ohio. The flames were very high but being about 7 miles away we couldn't tell exactly where, but was pretty sure on top of another ridge.
Then fakebook lit up with all kinds of silly reports.

Come to find out later in the day it happened on a childhood friend's of mine's farm. still not for sure what all caught fire, but have seen video posted by a Columbus, Ohio helicopter crew and looked like for sure 1 house (Larry's son) and rumor also Larry's caught fire.

Stupid helicopter crew had a 30 minute video, and all they could focus on was the 2 piles of smoking round bales...hardly showed the house was gone and the large hole in the ground next to the Twp. road where the line crossed under it.

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I looked this up, pipeline owned by enbridge, seems like there was an explosion about a year ago in same region.
 
That looks really bad,that?s probably why there?s so much resistance in western Canada from building one to move Alberta oil south.
 
(quoted from post at 21:48:31 01/21/19) That looks really bad,that?s probably why there?s so much resistance in western Canada from building one to move Alberta oil south.
Click to expand...

Most pipeline failures are the result of sabotage by environmentalists.
 
Enbridge has pipelines across MN, and want to build another one, but they don't have a very good track record. I hadn't heard that all problems were caused by environmentalists, sounds like fake news to me!
 
Embridge has a poor reputation for maintaining lines. Michigan is worried about 2 lines embridge has
running under the straits of mackinaw. The pipes are 50+ years old. They finally agreed to run new
pipes. A ship hit a pipe, and divers found other damage, but fortunately, no leaks yet. If those things
ever let go, it would make a mess out of Lake Huron.
 
Yes it is Enbridge, and yes there was another just last year or so. This one blew right where it goes under the twp. road.
My farm is just about 10 miles east of the location. The same line runs across my back corner, about 1/4 mile from my house and on the west side of the hill from me.

I suspect this has happened from all the rain we have had this summer and fall and all into winter....I'm betting the hill side below that twp. road had moved some and put tension on the line until it let go.


cvphoto10483.jpg



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all these pictures are copied from fakebook.
 
(quoted from post at 19:48:47 01/21/19)
(quoted from post at 21:48:31 01/21/19) That looks really bad,that?s probably why there?s so much resistance in western Canada from building one to move Alberta oil south.
Click to expand...

Most pipeline failures are the result of sabotage by environmentalists.
Click to expand...

Do you have any evidence of this, B&D, or are we just supposed to believe it because you said it?
 
I caught what B&D said too, total hogwash.

Most of these failures are due to aging pipelines or seismic shift.
 
There was a gas pipeline explosion about 6 miles from here in upstate New York almost 30 years ago.
One of the biggest disasters ever in this area.
Bob Hitchcock, the hero fireman was a friend of mine.
Gives me chills yet today when I think what he went through!

https://www.thedailystar.com/news/local_news/fatal-blast-painful-memories-grip-blenheim-years-after-gas-explosion/article_6f881a3c-2d5e-5d0a-82b9-ebe42237bd31.html
 
I would probably agree with that, as outside forces and other is 51%, that can be about anything, but would dispute outside forces are sabotage. A lot of the newer pipelines are still 50 years old with older ones approaching 70-80 years. Even a pipeline company with a less than stellar record still does a lot of work to keep these lines up. I think that particular line is one of the older ones, and was supposed to be replaced, do not know how far they are going on that.

I know of one line that goes up from Texas to Minneapolis was put in the 30s, it is mostly abandoned, and kept in place for farm taps. There are plans to replace it with a new line and convert the farm taps to propane. They derate the pressure on these lines as they get older and more vulnerable.
 
On the Enbridge comment about the lines going across the lakes, I think I know those lines, they run right below the southern edge of Superior. There are several lines, from different companies that cross that area. I had thought there may be some new lines going in.

I am a proponent of underground transportation, as it is magnitudes safer than transporting by rail. I think most of the environmental concerns are on the raw petroleum transportation from the oil sands to the refineries in Texas. That is really dirty stuff and makes a mess if there is a line break. Natural gas doesn't really make a mess once the initial explosion and fire are over.

It is amazing how safe the compressor stations are now compared to the past. They have continuous gas and fire monitoring with automatic shutdowns. I have seen many pictures of the compressor station explosions in the past and the list of names of people that have perished.
 
I was a pipeline engineer for many years.

Usually when you have a fire like that it was somebody digging and hit the line to start the fire. Corrosion leak usually does not burn. Unfortunately that was near the house, and the way the house was destroyed makes you think there was a leak that found an ignition source in the house. So sorry to see the damage.

As David said pipelines are still the safest way to transport hydrocarbons. There have been a lot of rail accidents from the Bakken Shale formation, for instance. But one accident is too many. There is a lot of effort that goes into making pipelines as safe as possible. One part of that safety effort is the One Call system. Before excavating each and every time you are wise to call your state's One Call system. most places it is 811. They will take the legals and the pipeline and phone companies will come out and flag their lines. That way your are much less likely to hit a live line. We cut a fiber optic trunkline one time. The One Call we had done kept us from any liability.
 
The last job I ever did on the pipelines was to run the installation of a heater and odorizing station on an 8" pipeline running off a 12" high pressure line near Hopkins, MI. The line was running about 8 miles to a factory (making mostly otc generic drugs) in Plainwell, MI. This was a Consumers Power co installation. This station was in the middle of a farmers field, and Consumers needed to get electricity in to the station, so one Saturday a cable plowing crew installed an underground electric cable. The following Monday, the gas distribution guys from Consumers came in and found out the cable plowing guys had missed the high pressure 12" gas line by 1"! These guys said if the plow would've hit the line, you would have seen the fire from Chicago! After that, I transferred into the building trades division of our local.
 
(quoted from post at 21:04:13 01/21/19) I would probably agree with that, as outside forces and other is 51%, that can be about anything, but would dispute outside forces are sabotage. A lot of the newer pipelines are still 50 years old with older ones approaching 70-80 years. Even a pipeline company with a less than stellar record still does a lot of work to keep these lines up. I think that particular line is one of the older ones, and was supposed to be replaced, do not know how far they are going on that.

I know of one line that goes up from Texas to Minneapolis was put in the 30s, it is mostly abandoned, and kept in place for farm taps. There are plans to replace it with a new line and convert the farm taps to propane. They derate the pressure on these lines as they get older and more vulnerable.
Click to expand...

We had an old line that ran thru the edge of the village. Several homes had taps on the line, I heard free gas for passage thru their properties. They were told that the line would be abandoned, months in advance. Not one of them changed over to propane until their furnaces quit in the cold.
 
> Most pipeline failures are the result of sabotage by environmentalists.

B&D, I'm sure you can find some examples of pipeline sabotage, but I challenge you to find an example of a spill or explosion that was caused by tree huggers. And the really big ones (such as the Enbridge break that dumped a million gallons of crude into the Kalamazoo River) seem to be caused by gross negligence on the part of operators.
 
There was one as big or bigger than that here in Western Pa just a couple of months ago. New line on a very step hill. Land slide.line came apart. Burnt home and buildings. Months later it is still not repaired; can not stabilize the hillside.
 
Pipeline maintenance in general is done to the standards that they are required to do so. Rules from 50 years ago are drastically different than todays standards. Those standards change every time an incident occurs. Blaming the operator is easy, however, most of the time, issues that arise are due to items that no one had considered in the past. Each State has different regulations and federal regulations. Do lines need to be inspected and monitored, absolutely. Anyone who thinks this country can survive without those pipelines is completely out of their minds. Energy is a commodity that we can not live without.
 
I don't have a dog in the fight, or anything to do with pipelines. I do suspect that there is a law of averages fits here, as the more exposure from more lines, you would have more chances of failures and damages from all sorts of things.
There are a couple of pipe lines that pass behind dad's place been there for god knows how long. Been there since before I was a kid i'm 60 now. It is about 24 inch maybe bigger not sure. They used to have some lengths of pipe setting on a rack years ago those were about 24 inch.
 
TransCanada had a 22" natural gas pipeline explode 700' from my house in a wetland a few years ago. The line was put in back in 1949, corrosion and unstable ground caused it to rupture. Thankfully, because of the wetland, it did not spark and catch fire. Many people within a mile radius had to evacuate for several hours. It was incredible, the power and force of these underground transmission pipelines are not to be underestimated!
 
811 is the law before you dig. If you or your company does damage on their right-of-way, that company will take you to court.
 
Sorry, B&D, but that doesn't support your claim that "most pipeline failures are the result of sabotage by environmentalists". Nor does it offer any evidence of spills or explosions resulting from sabotage, just one shutdown with no spill.

Sabotage of infrastructure isn't all that uncommon, and the saboteurs may have any number of motivations. But in the larger scheme of things there are bigger risks. For example Enbridge Line 5 was nearly punctured last year by a tugboat that dragged its anchor through the Straits. And there was the aforementioned Kalamazoo River spill that took years to clean up and cost over a billion dollars. When the folks entrusted to maintain and operate pipelines encourage billion-dollar mishaps, should we really be all that concerned about a handful of misguided greenies?
 
I just love it when all the "know it alls" with there cabin fever come on a post like this and try to tell us what happened....and to do this from a thousand miles away having never ever been in this area in there lives.....unbelievable.

Ain't know wonder how the truth gets twisted and turned, to the point....I give up.

My forecast for the future on this is.....only the land owner knows what happened....no one else was around while he and his son and grandson tried to save what little they could. Larry worked for the pipeline at a pump station in near by Summerfield, Ohio. and is now retired and spends time working on his farm with his sons (3) and grandsons.

It's damn hard to see a persons life long labors of love go up in smoke inside of 4 hours.....and all you can do is watch!!
 
Several years back in a pin head on the map town of DUNGANON Ohio one of Tennaco's lines blew , don't remember wich one as four of there lines run thru there . I live about 14 miles from it and you could see the flames up here . A friend lives about two miles from it up on a hill over looking where it blew and said you could feel the heat at his place . Many moons ago my buddy and took on a contract mowing job over those lines and were told that IF we got stuck our fell in a wash out over top the line not to try and spin your way out but to get help and get pulled out as told to us they had like 1200 PSI running thru them and if we broke into the line they would never find any part of us .
 
Quote: from buickanddeere

Most pipeline failures are the result of sabotage by environmentalists.

May I ask the Post secondary Institution you attended and gained this information from?

Respectfully

Bob.. PIPELINE Responsibility ...1971 > Dec,30 2011
 
In Mexico, theft appears big. Brave/ignorant/bold/dead. More than 80 dead in latest.
The tragedy came just three weeks after President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador launched an offensive against fuel theft gangs that have drilled dangerous, illegal taps into pipelines an astounding 12,581 times in the first 10 months of 2018, an average of about 42 per day. The crackdown has led to widespread fuel shortages at gas stations throughout the country as Pemex deviates distribution, both licit and illicit.

Lopez Obrador vowed on Saturday to continue the fight against a practice that steals about $3 billion per year in fuel.
 
Most of the sabotage attacks by environmentalist on pipe lines are on new construction. The last thing the environmentalist want to do is create an environmental disaster. Sometimes a little common sense goes a long way.

Rick
 
(quoted from post at 16:42:12 01/22/19) Most of the sabotage attacks by environmentalist on pipe lines are on new construction. The last thing the environmentalist want to do is create an environmental disaster. Sometimes a little common sense goes a long way.

Rick
Click to expand...

Some of the wide eyed enviro zealots figure a modest sacrifice now will stop numerous leaks in the future.
 

I grew up 5 miles south of Caldwell Ohio. A natural gas pipeline exploded there when I was a kid. The explosion was 1/2 mile from my house, but I was in school that day. We heard the explosion from 5 miles away! It blew out an enormous gouge into a very large hillside, burned several acres and destroyed at least 2 homes. It was said that the natural gas company had allowed the pressure to get too high causing the explosion.
 

I grew up 5 miles south of Caldwell Ohio. A natural gas pipeline exploded there when I was a kid. The explosion was 1/2 mile from my house, but I was in school that day. We heard the explosion from 5 miles away! It blew out an enormous gouge into a very large hillside, burned several acres and destroyed at least 2 homes. It was said that the natural gas company had allowed the pressure to get too high causing the explosion.
 
(quoted from post at 19:19:05 01/22/19)
(quoted from post at 16:42:12 01/22/19) Most of the sabotage attacks by environmentalist on pipe lines are on new construction. The last thing the environmentalist want to do is create an environmental disaster. Sometimes a little common sense goes a long way.

Rick
Click to expand...

Some of the wide eyed enviro zealots figure a modest sacrifice now will stop numerous leaks in the future.
Click to expand...


This is really funny! Really?

I'd like a list of the last ten pipeline sabotage attacks in the US that are provable beyond a shadow of a doubt to be committed by environmental zealots and were against in use pipe lines that could have or did result in an environmental disaster.

Heck I'm sure that would have made headlines!

Have you ever had the misfortune to actually talk to one of these people? The zealots? Not they don't talk about anything that may harm the environment. They talk about the possibility of having to eliminate some human life to protect the environment! I was told that by an employee of the US Forestry Department and a retiree from the US EPA on 2 separate occasions.

Rick
 
Hi Tony, that one I remember too. It was best seen from I77 just north of Dexter City. The Harper's lived there and almost lost there lives as they were at home at the time of the explosion. All part of the same line, just about 5 miles from me.
 
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