WV Sees 7 Pipeline Ruptures Last 30 Days, All Uninspected Lines
Somewhat troubling, at least on the surface of it, is that seven natural gas pipelines have ruptured in West Virginia over the past month because of the very wet spring. That’s according to WV’s chief pipeline inspector. All seven ruptures were along pipelines that are not regulated, and therefore not monitored by inspectors, because they are small gathering lines in rural areas. According to the Public Service Commission (PSC), there are typically only four ruptures of pipelines per year in the Mountain State. Two of the seven ruptures happened to Williams pipelines in Marshall County, a story we previously reported (see 2 Williams Pipelines Rupture in Marshall County After Heavy Rains). There’s only five inspectors for the whole state–and 14,000 miles of pipelines…
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Something troubling for MDN. The Constitution Pipeline, a 125-mile pipeline that will stretch from the gas fields of Susquehanna County, PA into New York–to Schoharie County, has been approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), a multi-year process. The only thing keeping Williams from starting up the backhoes and beginning to lay pipeline is New York State–specifically the state’s Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The DEC must grant what’s called a 401 Water Quality Certificate that allows the Constitution to lay pipe through and under swamps, creeks and other bodies of water. The DEC ran a series of public hearings on it, one of which MDN editor Jim Willis attended in January (see