That was four years before the record 1989 $15 million fine against Spectra (then Texas Eastern Transmission Corp.). What other safety problems does Spectra know that it’s not telling?

Philip Shabecoff wrote for the New York Times 17 March 1987, DATA SHOW E.P.A. DELAYED WARNING ABOUT PCB PERIL

The Environmental Protection Agency knew about PCB contamination at specific sites along the Texas Eastern pipeline as early as the autumn of 1985 but took no immediate action to protect public health at the sites, according to internal agency documents.

Agency officials had said that they were unable to act more quickly to deal with the contamination because they had insufficient information from the company.

In case you’re having trouble following all the name changes, American Oil & Gas Historical Society wrote, date unknown, WW II Big Inch and Little Big Inch Pipelines,

Texas Eastern Transmission Corporation was created specifically to bid on the planned War Assets Administration sale of these World War II surplus pipelines. The new company submitted its winning bid of $143,127,000 just nine days after incorporating on January 30, 1947. It then managed the Big Inch and Little Big Inch pipelines for more than four decades.

In 1989 Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Company bought Texas Eastern Transmission for $3.2 billion and became PanEnergy. Eight years later, Duke Power Company purchased PanEnergy and formed Duke Energy. In January 2007, Spectra Energy separated from Duke Energy to become an independent publicly traded, natural gas company. Today, Texas Eastern and its historic 1,200-mile pipelines (the Alaskan pipeline is 789 miles) are owned by Spectra Energy.

-jsq

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