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5/23/15, "Pipeline that leaked wasn't equipped with auto shut-off," AP, Brian Melley, Los Angeles
"The pipeline that leaked thousands of gallons of oil on the
California coast was the only pipe of its kind in the county not
required to have an automatic shut-off valve because of a court fight
nearly three decades ago, a county official said.
The original owner of the pipeline skirted the Santa Barbara County
requirement by successfully arguing in court in the late 1980s that it
should be subject to federal oversight because the pipeline is part of
an interstate network, said Kevin Drude, deputy director of the county's
Energy and Minerals Division. Auto shut-off valves are not required by
federal regulators.
"It's the only major pipeline that doesn't have auto shut-off," Drude said. "For us, it's routine."
Federal regulators are investigating the cause of Tuesday's leak that
spilled up to 105,000 gallons of crude oil from an underground pipe
into a culvert and as much as 21,000 gallons into the ocean at Refugio
State Beach. The spill killed untold numbers of fish, at least five
pelicans and a sea lion. It also mired other wildlife, including an
elephant seal, in the muck.
Plains All American Pipeline was still draining the pipe and trying
to locate the leak Saturday.
Federal regulators ordered the company to
remove the damaged section and send it to a lab for tests on the metal,
along with a series of other steps before it could resume pumping oil
through the pipe to inland refineries.
Plains said the pipeline had one valve to shut it down if oil flowed
in the opposite direction and three valves controlled by operators in
its Midland, Texas, control room. Plains defended its people approach to manually shutting down the
system, saying it's the standard across the country for liquid
pipelines.
"It is much safer for operators who understand the operations of the
pipeline to shut it down following a planned sequence of steps than for
computer to automatically close a valve on oil that is traveling in
confined space at high pressure," Patrick Hodgins, the company's senior
director of safety, said Saturday. "This is all standard operating
procedures within our industry."
While it's not known if an auto shut-off valve would have detected
the leak and reduced the size of the spill, environmentalists have
criticized the lack of such a device, saying it could have averted or
minimized the disaster.
"Everyone is pretty mystified why the pipeline didn't automatically
shut down when the leak occurred," said Linda Krop, chief counsel of the
Environmental Defense Center.
Santa Barbara County regulations sometimes exceed state and federal
standards, requiring additional environmental analysis or imposing
conditions to further protect health and the environment, Drude said.
One additional requirement is a valve that can detect changes consistent
with a leak and automatically shut down.
The county successfully fought another operator that didn't want to
install automatic shutdown valves on a pipeline from an offshore
drilling platform, Drude said.
However, when there was a leak on that line in 1997, an operator
overrode the automatic shutdown, and it continued spewing crude into the
Pacific Ocean a couple miles from shore. The 10,000 gallon spill fouled
21 miles of shoreline and killed more than 150 birds.
Richard Kuprewicz, president of Accufacts Inc., which investigates
pipeline incidents, said such valves aren't always effective, though
newer, more sophisticated "smart" models provide more accurate signals
that can trigger shutdowns.
A Plains employee discovered the leak early Tuesday afternoon, about
three hours after mechanical issues with the pipeline, according to the
company. The pipe was restarted for about 20 minutes before a pump
failed and then it was shut down because of changes in pressure.
The company said it was looking into whether those earlier problems led to the leak. A surge in pressure from starting up a system could cause a leak or exacerbate one, but it's too soon to tell, Kuprewicz said.
"In the past, surge pressures have caused pipes to rupture. But there
were other failures, too," he said, speaking in general and not about
the Plains incident. "If that were the case, that would become fairly
evident ... pretty quickly."
Plains All American subsidiaries have reported at least 223 accidents
along their lines and spilled a combined 864,300 gallons of hazardous
liquids since 2006, according to federal records. The company has been
subject to 25 enforcement actions by federal regulators and tallied
damages topping $32 million.
The company has defended its record, saying accidental releases have decreased as its pipelines have increased to 17,800 miles." Hockey Schtick
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