A Transco natural gas pipeline ruptured at approximately 3:07 p.m. Saturday 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.
This is not the first time for Williams Transco.
If that’s not enough to keep you up at night, here’s another great story from Peter Gorman at FW Weekly. Down the Pipe
When the drilling rigs are long gone, the dangers of gas pipelines will be just beginning.
Wednesday, 30 November 2011 10:15 PETER GORMAN
About Sharon Wilson
Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.
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Williams-Transco has had 35 PHMSA reportable accident from 2006 until this one. One previous incident in 2007 was close to this failure, and was caused by external corrosion, something pipeline are responsible for controlling.
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The fire was isolated to a mostly unpopulated area.
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Good thing, that. Hardly reassuring to us in the cities and near the ever-growing web of gas gathering pipelines that go in without any fanfare or warnings within a few hundred feet or less of our homes. The Fort Worth Weekly article is really good. Had missed that this week. Thanks.
There were also gas transmission pipelines that exploded & burned in Ohio & Miss. recently. And, someone from PHMSA recently pointed out that gas gathering pipelines behave the same way as gas transmission pipelines of the same size & pressure when they fail. They are not somehow “safer”.
Even without looking at the chemical damage and the possibility of explosions, there is this:
“Fracking Quakes Shake the Shale Gas Industry
Well shutdowns prompted by fracking-induced seismicity may inspire technology tweaks.
Friday, January 20, 2012
By Peter Fairley
Audio »
Geophysicists are increasingly certain that expanding production of shale gas is responsible for a spate of minor earthquakes that have upset some communities and prompted authorities in Arkansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, and the U.K. to shut down some natural-gas operations. The question now, say the experts, is whether the underground operations causing the trouble should be scaled back or more closely monitored to minimize future quakes—and whether the relatively small quakes may yet have the potential to trigger truly destructive ones.
At least one shale gas producer is already talking change: U.K.-based Cuadrilla Resources, whose first project set off quakes near Blackpool last year.
Shale gas operations generate microseismicity in two ways. One is through hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” the underground blasts of water, sand, and chemicals used to release the natural gas trapped within shale deposits. Fracking is how Cuadrilla caused a quake that measured 2.3 on the Richter scale last April, according to an analysis by the firm’s geophysical consultants.
Similarly, a fracking operation that injected 2.4 million gallons of fluid into an Oklahoma well over six days last January is a likely cause of the 43 earthquakes that followed, according to a state geologist’s report. The 1.0 to 2.8 magnitude quakes began on the second day of injection, and most were centered within 3.5 kilometers of the well. These small quakes were felt on the surface and disturbed nearby residents, but they caused no structural damage.
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A second source of shaking from shale gas operations is common to many oil and gas fields: the subsurface disposal of wastewater and of naturally occurring brines that surface with the desired hydrocarbons. Deep-injection disposal wells were probably behind a string of quakes in Arkansas that began in 2010, as well as more recent tremors around Youngstown, Ohio, that culminated in a magnitude 4.0 shake this New Year’s Eve. “There’s no doubt that those Youngstown earthquakes are directly associated with the disposal well there,” says Arthur McGarr, a geophysicist and induced-seismicity expert with the U.S. Geological Survey.”
In my old stomping grounds in southeast Louisiana, the company named “Kentwood Water” who I believe is now part of Nestle may have its ground water springs at risk.. http://alerts.skytruth.org/report/b47acac3-b8e4-33af-9299-7c8f86df0f92#c=stae
NRC Report ID: 1035876
Incident Time: 2013-01-08 10:45:00
Nearest City: Greensburg, LA
Location: COMPRESSOR STATION 65 29507 HW 43
Incident Type: PIPELINE
Material: NATURAL GAS
Medium Affected: SUBSURFACE
Suspected Responsible Party: WILLIAMS GAS PIPELINE TRANSCO
SkyTruth Analysis
Lat/Long: 30.832506, -90.667620 (Approximated from CITY_STATE)
Report Description
CALLER STATED THAT THERE WAS A DISCHARGE OF AN UNKNOWN AMOUNT OF NATURAL GAS FROM A PIPELINE DUE TO A LEAKING FLANGE THAT WAS BELOW GROUND. CALLER ALSO STATED THAT THE COST OF REPAIRS EXCEEDED 50,000 AND THIS IS WHY THE REPORT IS BEING MADE LATE.
This is based on its 2008 consumption totaling 19,500,000 barrels
per day. This gas is then compressed and sent ashore through sub-sea pipelines
for further processing at a natural gas refinery.
Parts of Queensland, Australia were in the grips of a drought.
international water well drilling co. llc recently posted..international water well drilling co. llc