Five years ago a natural gas pipeline blew up between the Florida Turnpike
and I-95, flying a 104-foot piece of 18-inch pipe through the air,
shutting down both roads, and fortunately missing a high school.
NTSB determined it was the fault of the pipeline operator,
Florida Gas Transmission Company, LLC (FGT).
FGT was
written up by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
in
NTSB/PAB-13/01 of 13 August 2013
for “Damage/Clean-up Cost: $606,360” in this 4 May 2009 incident
near Palm City, Florida:
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable
cause of the accident was environmentally assisted cracking under a
disbonded polyethylene coating that remained undetected by the integrity
management program. Contributing to the accident was Florida Gas
Transmission Company’s failure to include the pipe section that ruptured
in the integrity management program. Contributing to the prolonged gas
release was the pipeline controller’s inability to detect the rupture
because of SCADA system limitations and the configuration of the pipeline.
So NTSB said it was FGT’s fault.
And Florida and Martin County taxpayers had to pay for Continue reading Methane pipeline blew up onto Florida Turnpike next to high school →
Although the pipeline that ruptured was at least 4 decades old, company officials say pipelines don’t age —