by Sheila and Norman Lunger, RDA Members

When a gas pipeline blows, it shatters the air with the roar of a jet engine at 20 paces. But this is a jet engine that doesn't race down a runway or soar into the air. It stays put and roars and roars until the hills quake and the leaves shake.

Such a roar blasted the evening quiet around our home in rural Jordan Township at the eastern end of Lycoming County at 9:33 p.m. Tuesday, June 9. We thought it was a tornado at first. We rushed to the cellar and cowered there for a few minutes. As the deep rumbling noise continued unabated, we emerged to take a cautious look outside. Wouldn't a tornado have moved closer, or farther away? But if it wasn't a tornado, what was it?

A call to the county's 911 number brought the news that the Williams-Transco interstate pipeline that runs east-west a mile south of our home had blown out. The company was aware of the problem and working to tame the escaping gas. The site of the break was near Bradley Road, about a mile and a quarter to our southeast.

Was the escaping gas burning? A worried survey of the horizon showed no red ball, no glow, no sign of fire. So there had been no explosion, just gas escaping under immense pressure. The rumbling roar went on for almost 45 minutes, the time it took for all the gas between pipeline valves, spaced about 20 miles apart, to escape. Sheila called Williams Pipeline's local office, where a rep told her that the western valve was near Picture Rocks and the eastern valve was just over the line in Columbia County.

Shortly before 11 p.m., about 45 minutes after the roar had died down, fire fighters in fireproof coats and hard hats arrived at our house and asked us to evacuate to the Unityville fire hall until safety could be assured. The escaping gas had soared upwards into the atmosphere (adding to the planet's greenhouse gas burden), but the heavier mercaptan, an odorizing chemical that is mixed with methane to produce a "gassy" smell, had lingered. We felt safe enough to stay put, but many people whose homes were closer to the rupture did evacuate to the Unityville or Benton fire halls. A short time later, the evacuation call was withdrawn.      

Because Transco is an interstate pipeline, federal investigators were on the scene within hours. The investigative agency is known by its acronym, PHMSA (pronounced FIM-suh), the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The Transco line in Lycoming County dates to the 1960s and comprises three parallel lines within a single right-of-way. The line that ruptured was 24 inches in diameter. A spokesman for Williams said the ruptured line was composed of carbon steel and was 50 years old (installed in 1964). Its most recent inspection was in 2010. Inspections are conducted using a device known as a "pig" that travels through the pipe and measures the width of the pipe walls, examines the stability of its welds and determines whether the pipe is still round or has become misshapen.

Aerial photos published by Bloomsburg's Press Enterprise newspaper Thursday morning showed a long gash in the earth and a pipe whose surface had been peeled back for several feet. Trees along either side of the cleared right-of-way were brown with the mud that was blown out of the trench by the rupture.

After the blast, we drove along Bradley Road, which was lined with trucks and hard-hatted workers at the pipeline crossing. We spoke to a security guard who said workers had found the vaporized remnants of deer killed in the outburst. Up a slope to the east, the muddy trees were easily visible. A large crane or backhoe had been brought in to dig out the damaged pipe and uncover the two adjacent lines for inspection.

Closeup of the Transco pipeline blowout - Photo credit: Anonymous

A PHMSA spokesman told Sheila that investigators would gather up all the metal fragments and other debris they could find and test them to determine what caused the blowout. They will also examine Williams's records about maintenance and the testing of its lines. An investigation usually takes several months to more than a year, and when it is completed the report is publicly available on the PHMSA web site.

Two Williams spokesmen visited homes in the area the day after the blowout. They emphasized to us that interstate pipelines are regulated by the federal government and said pipeline integrity is guaranteed by detailed standards about materials, testing, and so on. However, federal and state regulations prescribe laxer standards for rural areas than for populated areas. For example, rural (Class 1) pipelines:

            (a) are tested to lower levels of pressure;

            (b) are permitted to have fewer welds tested;

            (c) need not be buried so deep;

            (d) can have their shut-off valves farther apart.

Most of the new pipelines in north central Pennsylvania are Class 1 gathering lines that link gas pads to compressor stations. The safety of Class 1 pipelines in Pennsylvania is not subject to regulation by any authority - a major oversight. However, Pennsylvania law requires the Public Utility Commission to maintain a registry of the location, length, and diameter of all gas pipelines, including Class 1, listing their pressures and the companies that operate them. 

Enthusiasts of natural gas development in Pennsylvania stress that, when the Williams-Transco pipeline blew out, "the system worked." Valves shut off the flow of gas in the line. Early responders from local fire companies helped to divert traffic on nearby roads and highways (State Routes 118 and 239) and advised residents to evacuate. No one was killed or even injured

Yet for families subjected to the fright of the blast and the prolonged roar of escaping gas, for those children and adults who evacuated to fire halls and lost several hours of sleep, the incident seemed anything but reassuring. At the very least it demonstrated that, whatever precautions the industry takes, "stuff happens." Each incident degrades the quality of life in our area a little more.