Pa. regulators launch effort to rethink pipeline safety
PUC seeks more disclosure, considers changes
At a time when the state has seen numerous problems with pipeline construction crisscrossing its lands, Pennsylvania regulators are moving to get a better grip on safety involving the often massive projects.
“The time is ripe to move forward with specific proposals to enhance pipeline safety in Pennsylvania,” the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission said as it set the stage for what is likely to be a hotly contested review of the topic. “We must proceed expeditiously, but cautiously.”
In a pair of rulemaking proposals introduced Thursday, the commission kept it generic. But all over the documents were echoes of Mariner East — a trio of Energy Transfer pipelines that have suffered spills, slides, environmental damage, court-mandated shutdowns, criminal probes, and a public rebuke from Gov. Tom Wolf.
The PUC is seeking comments on pipeline construction, materials and inspection, and the disclosure of financial information, among dozens of other topics.
The invitation is broad, even if the target of the agency’s proposed rulemaking is specific: public utility hazardous liquid pipelines.
Today, that includes three pipeline systems, all in various stages of controversy.
They are the Mariner East system; Buckeye Partners’ Laurel Pipe Line, which is seeking federal approval to periodically reverse the direction of flow on part of the line so it can ship petroleum from the Midwest into Central Pennsylvania; and an 84-mile oil pipeline in Eastern Pennsylvania seeking to be reborn as a natural gas line.
While the three lines are considered public utilities — each has the power of eminent domain and their rates are regulated by the PUC — they have not been obligated to comply with certain construction and financial reporting requirements that apply to natural gas, electric and water utilities.
The PUC is wondering if it’s time for that to change.
The state agency also has been careful to set loose limits on the scope of pipeline safety comments it is hoping to solicit, noted agency spokesman Nils Hagen-Frederiksen.
If it deals with pipeline safety
and falls within PUC jurisdiction, it’s fair game.
While public utility pipelines are covered by one part of the Pennsylvania code, other statutes give the PUC certain control over nonutility gathering pipelines, such as Energy Transfer’s Revolution pipeline that exploded in Beaver County on Sept. 10.
That might surface during the comment period, too.
“It’s a very broad discussion that the commission is seeking to engage in,” Mr. Hagen-Frederiksen said.
Some of the questions PUC is asking are:
• how deep is deep enough to bury a hazardous liquids pipeline;
• what is the appropriate distance between stacked buried pipelines;
• where should pipeline shut off valves be located;
• how can regulators ensure that older pipelines are properly protected from corrosion;
• how often do they need to be inspected.
The PUC also asked for suggestions about emergency response planning, regulation of horizontal direction drilling — an underground boring process used to avoid surface impacts that has resulted in dozens of spills on the Mariner East 2 pipeline construction — as well as geophysical testing, a lack of which was blamed for some of the spills and sinkholes on the project.
It will look at protection of private water wells, a thorny topic that the Department of Environmental Protection grappled with before and after Mariner East 2 construction began; and even “land agents and eminent domain,” a right that comes along with being a public utility and one that was used by Energy Transfer along its route to place pipe in some areas without landowner consent.
The PUC wants to hear about vetting contractors and their employees, too.
Comments on all of these questions will be due within 60 days of their publication in the Pennsylvania Bulletin.
Meanwhile, another proposal is likely to move a bit faster. That one seeks to have public utility hazardous liquids pipelines submit annual financial reports and conduct studies of the “service life” of their facilities every five years.
It also would require them to disclose their capital improvement plans every five years.
Natural gas, electric and water utilities already comply with these reporting requirements, which enables the PUC to assess a company’s fitness to operate its assets now and in the future, according to agency documents.
The concept won’t be new to Energy Transfer, which in April signed a settlement with the PUC over violations.
The centerpiece of that agreement is a study of the service life of Mariner East 1, a mostly bare steel, 8-inch diameter pipeline installed in the early 1930s.
Historically, it ferried refined petroleum products from eastern Pennsylvania to the western part of the state, but with the addition of a new segment connecting Houston to Delmont, it has been repurposed to transport ethane and propane from west to east.
The settlement stemmed from corrosion found on the pipeline during an investigation of an 840-gallon leak of ethane and propane through a hole in the pipeline in Berks County.