COLUMBIA GAS TRANSMISSION CORP — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 1988-10-22

Gas transmission and gathering incident in GLADY, RANDOLPH County, WV. Reported cause: OTHER. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, $250,000 reported property damage. Operator-reported incident data submitted to PHMSA, generally within 30 days. Records may be supplemented or corrected and do not represent final agency causal findings.

Report number: 19880274.

Operator ID: 2616.

Reported incident date: 19881022.

Cause detail: THE DEHYDRATION PLANT EXPLOSION AND RESULTING FIRE WHICH DESTROYED TWO GLYCOL HEATER; A GAS/GLYCOL SEPARATOR; A GLYCOL ACCUMULATOR TANK; FOUR GLYCOL PUMPS; ALLASSOCIATED PIPING, VALVES, REGULATORS AND FITTINGS; AND THE EQUIPMENT ENCLOSUREMADE DETERMINING THE ACTUAL CAUSE IMPOSSIBLE. THE PRESUMED CAUSE IS THAT DIRT OR FOREIGN MATTER CAUSED AN AUTOMATIC FLOAT DRAIN ASSEMBLY ON A BALSTON A-60 FILTER TO MALFUNCTION IN THE OPEN POSITION. THE FILTER WAS USED TO REMOVE GLYCOL, NOT REMOVED BY THE FUEL SCRUBBER, FROM GAS SCAVANGED VIA OF THE OF TEH GAS/GLYCOL SEPARATOR FOR THE GLYCOL HEATER FUEL GAS. (SEE FIGURE 1) THIS ALLOWED ALL THEGLYCOL TO BLOW FROM THE FILTER DRAIN, AND THEN 30 PSIG GAS TO ESCAPE. THE ESCAPING GAS THEN ACCUULATED IN THE EQUIPMENT ENCLOSURE UNTIL IT WAS IGNITED BY THE HEATER PILOTS. THE RESULTING HEAT FROM THE EXPLOSION AND FIRE MELTED THE NITRILE SEAT ND DEAPHRAM IN A FISHER 630 NREGULATOR ALLOWING 760 PSIG GAS TO FEED THE FIRE.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: ALL OTHER CAUSES — MISCELLANEOUS.

PHMSA indexed costs: $250,000 reported total cost, $224,165.815 in 1984 dollars, $552,051.413 in current-year dollars.

PHMSA trend flags, standardized causes, and indexed costs are analytical fields added to operator-reported incident data. They do not represent final agency causal findings.