Federal pipeline safety regulations require pipeline operators to develop and implement a continuing Public Awareness Programs that follows the guidance provided by the American Petroleum Institute (API) Recommended Practice (RP) 1162. The programs must provide pipeline safety information to four stakeholder audiences: affected public, emergency officials, local public officials, and excavators.
Baseline communication to residents along a pipeline right-of-way, for example, include mailing print materials every two years and maintaining pipeline markers. To view a summary of APR RP 1162, visit PHMSA's website.
Evacuation plans are developed and coordinated by the appropriate local emergency response department as they are municipality-specific. In fact, the decisions regarding public evacuations or shelter-in-place can only be ordered by government agencies.
A pipeline company’s role in the process, as determined by state or federal regulations, is to provide emergency response departments with the proper training and information that will allow them to develop these plans, which we have done. Regardless of the type of incident—house fire, flood, pipeline or other, first responders are trained how to help people with different circumstances.
Federal pipeline safety regulations require pipeline operators must follow the guidance provided by the American Petroleum Institute (API) Recommended Practice (RP) 1162. Summarized here. Baseline information shared with emergency response officials include: pipeline purpose and reliability, awareness of hazardous and prevention measures undertaken, emergency preparedness communications, potential hazards, pipeline location, and how to obtain additional information. Many pipeline operators supplement this communication with tabletop drills and/or training exercises.
Pipeline operators have long had warning and early-detection systems in place that monitor the pipelines 24/7 for any variances in pressure, temperature, flow rate, and more. If a variance is detected, a sophisticated computational pipeline monitoring (CPM) system alerts trained personnel, and computerized valves are closed immediately. Trained personnel are then quickly dispatch to the location and notify local emergency responders..
According to John Zurcher who is an expert in pipeline integrity and was formerly the chairman of the Gas Research Institute and helped write many regulatory standards, public detection systems and alarms have proven to not work. He says gas detectors are unreliable for many reasons. They can be incorrectly set off by detecting methane from cows, gas from the sewer or gas produced by swamps, and diesel from idling trucks or a train going by, to name a few. The inadvertent triggering of these devices could set off false alarms everywhere all the time. False alarms could cause panic and put people in unnecessary danger prior to first responders being able to execute proper protocol. Separately, adding odorant to transmission pipelines is not of value as determined by both PHMSA and the NTSB. Odorant in pipelines is sulphur-based which can be corrosive to the internal surfaces of the pipe.
Pipelines safely transport large volumes of petroleum products over long distances every day. “Pipeline systems are the safest means to move these products,” according to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), the division of the U.S. Department of Transportation responsible for enforcing pipeline safety. An ordinary pipeline can safely transport the equivalent of 750 tanker trucks per day, or a train of 75 tank railcars a day, as noted by PHMSA.
In 2015 there were more than 2.4 million miles of petroleum pipelines in the U.S., and natural gas liquid pipelines accounted for more than 62,000 miles of those pipelines, according to the American Petroleum Institute and the Association of Oil Pipe Lines. America’s pipelines shipped more than 750 billion gallons of crude oil and liquid petroleum products – including propane, ethane, butane, gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other products – in 2015.
PHMSA and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) are the agencies that develop the guidance for cell phone use. Once you are a safe distance away from the potential leak, you can use a telephone or cell phone to call 911.