Tag Archives: inspection

Spectra never bothered to check pipeline for corrosion –Spectra employee

So

“the pipe will be monitored 24/7”?
That’s not Spectra’s actual practice, according to an employee
and according to a federal fine.

By fjgallagher for Natural Gas Watch 19 June 2013,

Spectra Energy Employee: We Never Bothered to Check Natural Gas Pipeline for Corrosion,



A Spectra Energy employee acknowledged to federal inspectors that
the company never conducted key tests for corrosion on a natural gas
pipeline that was already operating at excess capacity, according to
documents recently obtained by NaturalGasWatch.org.

There’s much more in the article, including this:

Additionally, according to another May 2, 2013 letter sent under
separate cover from (PHMSA) to Holeman, Spectra failed to install
equipment to monitor whether or not the natural gas pipeline in
question was being affected by corrosion and could not produce any
records indicating that the pipeline had, in fact, ever been tested
for corrosion or that the pipeline was even structurally sound.

So that’s what
“the pipe will be monitored 24/7” means.
Good to know.

See Item 2 in that

Final Order
with fines
from the
Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA)
to Spectra Energy CEO Gregory L. Ebel: Continue reading →

Spectra backtracks about pipeline incident

Spectra flip-flops on major safety events as well as on
whose houses are beautiful
and

whether Georgia cities can use gas
from its pipeline from

PCB-polluted Anniston, Alabama to Orlando, Florida.
And Spectra was fined recently for violating both federal safety requirements
and its own operating procedures, including for pipeline monitoring.
Oh, and its natural gas comes from fracking.

Remember Spectra rep Andrea Grover,

quoted by the VDT?
Well, she’s been quoted elsewhere, too.


Mike Benard wrote for
CSRHUB 5 April 2013,

Spectra Energy ‘Backtracks’ on Methane Incident:
First: “Nothing Released …. No Smoke …. No Incident”;
Then Admits: Methane & Hydrocarbons Released,

Spectra Energy Corporation (SE, NYSE) was forced to backtrack on
dismissive assertions it made about a nighttime incident at its huge
natural gas compressor station in Bedford County, PA, after
persistent neighbors and a reporter kept pressing the company and
state regulators for facts.

A natural gas compressor station, like the ones

Spectra says will be along its proposed AL-GA-FL pipeline,
maybe in Dougherty County, maybe in Lowndes County; we don’t know.

Now Spectra could say this was a different kind of compressor
because it’s a different kind of operation in Pennsylvania.
What kind?
Fracking: Continue reading →