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Regulators warn Mass. gas blasts could happen anywhere, push operators to learn

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Regulators warn Mass. gas blasts could happen anywhere, push operators to learn

The effects of a deadly series of gas explosions and fires in Massachusetts are echoing across the U.S. as regulators and industry try to figure out what can be done to prevent a similar disaster from happening again.

Pipeline safety experts across the U.S. are closely monitoring reactions to the accident, in which low-pressure lines were flooded with high-pressure gas after maintenance work. "Even though this incident in Massachusetts occurred on a low-pressure system, regardless of what pressure a system is operated at, nobody's immune to overpressurization situations," Gary Kenny, chairman of the National Association of Pipeline Safety Representatives, or NAPSR, said during a recent interview.

The severe Sept. 13 overpressurization on the NiSource Inc. system was likely tied to human error, according to a preliminary federal report. As NiSource subsidiary Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, formally known as Bay State Gas Co., contractors were replacing an old, low-pressure pipeline, sensors that fed pressure-related information back to a valve remained on the old system. With no gas flowing through the old line anymore, the sensors directed the valve to open wider and wider, flooding a low-pressure system connected to thousands of homes with high-pressure gas.

"Whoever wrote up the tie-in procedures failed to take those pressure lines into account. That can happen with anybody," Wallace Jones, the NAPSR's vice chair, said in a recent interview. "What happened up there could happen anywhere."

Some regulators have already pushed for more accountability from their operators. In New Hampshire, for instance, the Public Service Commission on Sept. 28 directed Unitil Corp. and Liberty Utilities Co. to undertake a careful review of all factors that could contribute to overpressurization events and to explain what the companies can to do mitigate these risks.

"The commission expects gas utilities to proactively prevent any over-pressurization under all circumstances," the Sept. 28 letter said. "It is imperative that each company put as many safeguards in place as possible to avoid an over-pressurization incident from developing."

Jones, who also serves as the Alabama Public Service Commission gas pipeline safety division's director, and Jason Montoya, NAPSR's most recent past chair, expect that similar reviews may become more prevalent.

"What will probably come out of it on a more national level is to verify that operators are periodically reviewing the adequacy of their procedures. I'm pushing that heavily in our state, where it's already in the regulations," Montoya, who also serves as the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission's pipeline safety bureau chief, said in a recent interview. "That's probably going to be elevated in several states that say: 'You're now going to be required to measure the effectiveness of your procedures periodically.'"

While regulators agree that there are new lessons to be learned from the Massachusetts failures, the cause of the situation was not unprecedented.

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio in 2012 fined Dominion East Ohio $500,000 after an overpressurization on the utility's gas distribution system caused $1.3 million in property damage, severely harming 11 residences and damaging gas-related appliances in 150 homes. The incident also involved low-pressure regulating devices, although the root of the failure was fluid in the system.

In 1992, a Peoples Gas Light and Coke Co. crew doing maintenance work triggered an overpressurization on the company's Chicago system, sending high-pressure gas into low-pressure pipes and appliances. The resulting explosion and fires killed four people, injured for more people, damaged 14 houses and impacted three commercial buildings, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report.

In the aftermath of the recent Massachusetts disaster, the American Gas Association, or AGA, reached out to its member companies with a survey asking the utilities to share everything they have in place to prevent overpressurization incidents, including training, operator qualification testing and equipment. AGA plans to identify the leading practices to prevent overpressurization and compile the information into a white paper for the industry to use.

The association also plans to help develop clearer strategies for utilities' incident response and crisis communications. "They could've done a lot better on their communications," Christina Sames, AGA's vice president of operations and engineering at the American Gas Association, said of Columbia Gas of Massachusetts in the immediate aftermath of the incident.

The best practices AGA is looking to develop would include how to mobilize quickly, what communication is appropriate in the hour and days after an incident, what information should be shared over the following weeks, and what to expect in a National Transportation Safety Board investigation, among other things.