The former head of the federal pipeline safety administration Tuesday defended the use of pipelines to transport oil as the safest method available, despite problems such as the March 29 rupture in Mayflower.
The country’s 2.6 million-mile pipeline system works successfully most of the time and is 530 times safer than rail and 50,000 times safer than truck transportation, said Brigham McCown, who was appointed acting administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration by President George W. Bush in June 2005.
“Pipeline safety laws are the culmination of many years of debate, studies, active deliberations, thoughtful analysis and some yelling. Many stakeholders contributed to this debate for one purpose: the construction of safer, more reliable and more secure transportation systems for all Americans,” said McCown, who co-wrote the Pipeline Inspection, Protection and Enforcement and Safety Act of 2006.
McCown said the proposed Keystone XL project is a “no-brainer” because of the country’s need for fossil fuels and that the pipeline, which would run from Alberta, Canada, to a pipeline in Steele City, Neb., would have safety features that go beyond those required by the federal pipeline safety administration, including additional valves and pre-staged emergency response sites.
McCown, who is now a transportation and energy consultant, said he does not represent any pipeline companies or any businesses in the oil industry.
About 100 people attended McCown’s lecture on pipeline safety at the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock. Among them was Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola and John Tynan, the watershed protection manager for Central Arkansas Water.
The Pegasus pipeline includes a 13.5-mile section that runs through the Lake Maumelle watershed. The lake provides drinking water for about 400,000 central Arkansans.
Stodola asked McCown whether he was satisfied with the available technologies to inspect the pipelines, including hydrostatic tests that pump water through the pipes at certain pressures and in-line tool tests that search for cracks and other defects. A 2010 inspection of the Pegasus pipeline for cracks and corrosion did not find problems in the section that runs through the Northwoods subdivision in Mayflower, where an estimated 210,000 gallons of crude oil were released after the pipeline ruptured earlier this year, an Exxon Mobil Pipeline Co. executive has said.
The results of a 2013 inspection of the pipeline are still being analyzed, the company said.
McCown said he does not like the hydrostatic tests because they submit the pipes to pressures higher than operating standards, but he called the current technology sound, especially in-line tools that are sophisticated enough to detect problems in pipe seams.
After the lecture, McCown told reporters that he believes the current technology is adequate but he is waiting for the results of the pipeline regulation agency’s report on the cause of the spill and whether it could have been detected.
“The technology, just like technology in cellphones or computers, is growing rapidly, to the point now where we can get a three-dimensional picture of what a pipeline looks like. … With that technology, we need to make sure that we’re looking for the right things and that the sensors are lined up to properly detect the right things,” McCown said.
Tynan said in an interview that he hopes that the pipeline safety agency will continue to improve on the technologies available to inspect pipelines, but he added that water system officials are concerned that not all of the pipeline defects are being detected.
The water system officials are still waiting for the comprehensive results to be released from a February inspection of the Pegasus pipeline, Tynan said.
Stodola said after the lecture that he remains concerned that Exxon Mobil’s pipeline tests in 2010 and February did not detect problems in the segment where the rupture occurred. The pipeline safety administration, he said, should be cautious about reopening the Pegasus line.
“We’re going to have to move very slowly and very cautiously on this to any conclusion. And if, in fact, we determine that there are other parts of this pipeline that may suffer the same kind of anomalies, then I think we will take whatever actions are appropriate to protect the public,” Stodola said.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 08/21/2013