COLONIAL PIPELINE COMPANY — Hazardous liquid — incident on 2007-09-12

Hazardous liquid incident in SUMTER County, AL. Reported cause: 22. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, YES GASOLINE released, $239,860 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: 20070285.

Operator ID: 2552.

Reported incident date: 9/12/2007.

Cause detail: RUPTURED OR LEAKING SEAL/PUMP PACKING

Cause detail: AT APPROXIMATELY 1824 HOURS ON TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 11TH THE CONTROL CENTER STARTED THE LINE 1 UNIT 3 AT EPES STATION. AT SOME TIME AFTER THIS START UP THE BEARING SEAL ON THE OUTBOARD END OF THE #3 PUMP FAILED AND BEGAN TO ALLOW PRODUCT (GASOLINE) TO FLOW INTO THE PUMPS BUFFALO SYSTEM LEAK CONTAINMENT BOX. UNDER NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES THE PRODUCT WOULD BACK UP INTO THE BOX IF A PUMP SEAL IS LEAKING BADLY AND RAISE THE FLOAT IN THE BOX WHICH WOULD ALARM THE CONTROL CENTER AND AUTOMATICALLY SHUT DOWN AND ISOLATE THE PUMP UNIT. UNFORTUNATELY IN THIS CASE THE FLOAT MECHANISM ALSO FAILED WHICH ALLOWED GASOLINE TO OVERFLOW THE BOX AND SPILL OUT ONTO THE GROUND. AT THE SAME TIME THE GASOLINE IS SPILLING OUT ON THE GROUND, SOME OF THE PRODUCT WAS FLOWING THROUGH THE DRAIN PIPING TO THE SUMP. AT 0205 ON SEPTEMBER 12TH THE CONTROL CENTER RECEIVED A HIGH SUMP ALARM AT EPES STATION AND GENERATED A CALLOUT TO THE LOCAL TECHNICIAN. THE TECHNICIAN ARRIVED AT THE STATION AROUND 0322 AT WHICH TIME HE DISCOVERED THE PRODUCT BEING RELEASED FROM THE PUMP UNIT AND NOTIFIED THE CONTROL CENTER WHICH IMMEDIATELY SHUT DOWN AND ISOLATED THE UNIT. THE GROUND AT EPES STATION WAS PUDDLED AFTER A RAINFALL EVENT EARLIER THAT NIGHT AND INITIALLY DETERMINED THAT THERE WAS ABOUT 1 BARREL OF GASOLINE RELEASED. NOTIFICATIONS WERE MADE TO THE OPERATIONS MANAGER AT 03:53 WHO IN TURN NOTIFIED THE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGER AND DISTRICT LEADER. THE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGER DECIDED TO REPORT DIRECTLY TO THE SCENE UPON NOTIFICATION AND THE DISTRICT LEADER NOTIFIED THE GENERAL MANAGER OF OPERATIONS VIA E-MAIL DUE TO THE TIME OF DAY AND THE RELATIVELY LOW AMOUNT OF THE RELEASE AT THAT TIME. THE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGER ARRIVED ON SCENE SHORTLY AFTER 0600 ON THE 12TH AND BEGAN TO ASSIST THE LOCAL TECHNICIAN WITH THE SITE ASSESSMENT. AS THE SUN BEGAN TO RISE ALLOWING THEM TO BETTER ASSESS THE SCENE THEY WERE ABLE TO ASCERTAIN THAT THE PRODUCT LEVEL IN THE OIL WATER SEPARATOR WAS GREATER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT AND THAT THERE WAS STILL SIGNIFICANT VOLUME OF GASOLINE IN THE YARD SUB SURFACE DRAINAGE SYSTEM. THE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGER NOTIFIED THE DISTRICT LEADER AROUND 0730 THAT THE VOLUME ESTIMATE SHOULD BE INCREASED TO 50 BARRELS. IN ADDITION HE ESCALATED THE RESPONSE EFFORT ORDERING ADDITIONAL EQUIPMENT AND RESOURCES. THE PROJECT LEADER WAS PUT ON STANDBY (LOCATED AT THE TIME IN BATON ROUGE, LA) TO ASSIST. THE DISTRICT LEADER NOTIFIED THE GENERAL MANAGER OF OPERATIONS VIA PHONE CALL OF THE REVISED VOLUME AMOUNT. AFTER DISCUSSION IT WAS DECIDED THAT A GROUP 4 PAGE SHOULD BE ISSUED TO INFORM THE REST OF MANAGEMENT OF THE ISSUE. THE CONTROL CENTER ISSUED THE GROUP 4 AFTER BEING INSTRUCTED BY THE DISTRICT LEADER TO DO SO. AS THE DAY PROGRESSED AND MORE RESOURCES ARRIVED AT THE SCENE, MINOR EXCAVATIONS WERE MADE IN THE STATION YARD AND THE YARD REPEATEDLY FLOODED WITH WATER. FREE PRODUCT WAS RECOVERED AND PUMPED INTO THE UTILITY TANK ON SITE. AT THE END OF THE DAY ALL THE FREE PRODUCT IN THE YARD HAD BEEN RECOVERED. A TOTAL OF 63 BARRELS WERE RECOVERED. WORK CONTINUED ON THE 13TH WITH ADDITIONAL FLOODING OF THE STATION TO SATISFY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF EPA REGION 4 AND THE STATE OF ALABAMA. NO ADDITIONAL PRODUCT WAS RECOVERED. ALL CONTAMINATED SOIL WAS EXCAVATED AND PROPERLY DISPOSED OF.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE — RUPTURED OR LEAKING SEAL/PUMP PACKING.

PHMSA indexed costs: $239,860 reported total cost, $136,518.545 in 1984 dollars, $336,203.162 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.