Pipeline blast should get the attention of people everywhere

Most people just don’t think about infrastructure much of the time. There’s simply too much else to worry about.

Until some overheated transmission lines sets in motion a chain reaction that blacks out large parts of several states. Or a water main deep beneath the street bursts, causing a section of a city to take a step back in time. Or until a bridge collapses, dumping cars, trucks and buses into the river.

Then, at least for a while, people think about infrastructure, with the amount and longevity of the thinking being directly proportional to the closeness of the catastrophe.

Based on proximity, Ohioans may have paid scant attention to the headlines of two weeks ago when a natural gas explosion in San Bruno, Calif., killed seven people and burned 37 houses to the ground. It took more than an hour to shut off the flow of gas through the 21/2 foot pipeline, during which a plum of fire that reached 1,000 feet high kept rescue workers out of the area.

This story represents more than a tragedy for a neighborhood near San Francisco, it is a cautionary tale for everyone.

These lines are everywhere

The United States relies on natural gas for one-fourth of its energy needs, and the amount of gas that will be used in future years will increase before it decreases. There are more than 2.2 million miles of pipelines crisscrossing the country, and much of it runs beneath homes and buildings. There are only a handful of inspectors for all that pipeline; most of the inspection is left to the companies that own the lines. Some of the pipe is more than 50 years old. And in the wake of 9/11, fears of terrorist attacks has caused officials to put a lid on information that used to be public about pipelines, their condition, and inspection and repair reports. Thousands of miles of pipeline laid through uninhabited tracts now lie beneath residential areas.

“If this was the FAA and air travel we were talking about, I wouldn’t get on a plane,” Rick Kessler, a former congressional staffer specializing in pipeline safety issues, told the Associated Press. Kessler works for the Pipeline Safety Trust, an advocacy group based in Bellingham, Wash.

Not even on the list

It is of no comfort to learn that Pacific Gas & Electric Corp., which owns the pipeline beneath San Bruno, compiled a list of the utility’s 100 riskiest pipeline segments, based on such factors as their design, age, seismic location and potential for corrosion or damage inflicted by others. The line that ruptured and exploded didn’t even make the list.

There are common sense steps that can be taken, using new technology, including video equipment, to visually inspect pipelines, installation of automatic shutoff valves, better mapping so that emergency crews know what they are dealing with and reducing pressure in older lines.

While this explosion occurred in California, aging pipelines are not a California problem, any more than bridge deterioration is a Minneapolis problem. It is a matter of concern to the federal government and every state.