CONSOLIDATED EDISON CO OF NEW YORK — Gas distribution — incident on 2019-01-04

Gas distribution incident in NEW YORK, QUEENS County, NY. Reported cause: OTHER OUTSIDE FORCE DAMAGE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 10765 NATURAL GAS released, $900,000 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: 20190012.

Operator ID: 2704.

Reported incident date: 1/4/2019 14:25.

Location detail: NORTHERN BOULEVARD BET 112 PLACE AND 114 STREET

Cause detail: OTHER OUTSIDE FORCE DAMAGE

Cause detail: ON JANUARY 4, 2019, AT 14:15, THE FIRE DEPARTMENT OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK (FDNY) CALLED CON EDISON'S GAS EMERGENCY RESPONSE CENTER (GERC) AND REPORTED THAT THEY WERE RESPONDING TO A POSSIBLE GAS EXPLOSION IN THE STREET IN THE AREA OF NORTHERN BOULEVARD BETWEEN 112TH PLACE AND 114TH STREET IN QUEENS. CON EDISON'S GERC IMMEDIATELY DISPATCHED MULTIPLE PERSONNEL INCLUDING SUPERVISORS FROM ITS GAS DISTRIBUTION SERVICES (GDS) AND GAS EMERGENCY RESPONSE FORCE (ERF)/CONSTRUCTION DEPARTMENTS TO THE LOCATION. AT 14:16, CON EDISON'S GAS CONTROL GROUP REPORTED RECEIVING A LOW-PRESSURE ALARM AT GAS REGULATOR STATION GR-254, WHICH SUPPLIES THE SAME AREA. CON EDISON GDS PERSONNEL ARRIVED ON LOCATION AT 14:22 AND BEGAN INVESTIGATING. FDNY WAS ALREADY ON LOCATION AT THAT TIME. AT 14:25, ON-SITE GDS PERSONNEL REPORTED A STREET COLLAPSE IMMEDIATELY ADJACENT TO AN ACTIVE CONSTRUCTION SITE, AND THAT THE COLLAPSE HAD COMPROMISED A 24-INCH HIGH-PRESSURE STEEL GAS SUPPLY MAIN (INSTALLED IN 1936), CREATING A BLOWING GAS CONDITION WITH NO IGNITION. CON EDISON'S GERC THEN INITIATED A MULTIPLE RESOURCE RESPONSE EVENT (CODE MURRE) AND DISPATCHED ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL TO THE LOCATION FROM SEVERAL DEPARTMENTS, INCLUDING GDS, LEAK SURVEY, AND ITS GAS EMERGENCY RESPONSE GROUP (ERG). AT 14:26, CON EDISON'S GERC IDENTIFIED TWO HIGH-PRESSURE MAIN VALVES (46441 & 15123) FOR ISOLATING THE COMPROMISED 24-INCH STEEL SUPPLY MAIN. AT 14:50, GDS CLOSED MAIN VALVE 46441 BUT WAS UNABLE TO CLOSE MAIN VALVE 15123, WHICH WAS REPORTEDLY INOPERABLE. CON EDISON'S GERC THEN IDENTIFIED A BACK-UP HIGH-PRESSURE MAIN VALVE (21738), WHICH WAS CLOSED BY ON-SITE GDS PERSONNEL AT 15:42, THEREBY ISOLATING THE AFFECTED SUPPLY MAIN AND ELIMINATING THE BLOWING GAS CONDITION. THE INCIDENT RESULTED IN NO SYSTEM IMPACT OR GAS SERVICE INTERRUPTIONS. CON EDISON RECEIVED A TOTAL OF ONE-HUNDRED FIFTY-SIX (156) RELATED GAS ODOR COMPLAINTS. CON EDISON INVESTIGATED EACH COMPLAINT AND DETERMINED THEM ALL TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH THE INCIDENT. AT THE TIME OF THE INCIDENT, CON EDISON'S INITIAL CALCULATION DETERMINED THAT THE RUPTURED GAS MAIN HAD RELEASED LESS THAN THREE MILLION CUBIC FEET OF NATURAL GAS. SUBSEQUENTLY, ON JANUARY 7, 2019, BASED ON ADDITIONAL ANALYSIS, CON EDISON'S GAS ENGINEERING SYSTEM PLANNING GROUP DETERMINED THAT GREATER THAN TEN MILLION CUBIC FEET OF NATURAL GAS WAS LOST DURING THE INCIDENT (CON EDISON'S GAS ENGINEERING SYSTEM PLANNING GROUP CALCULATED THE TOTAL ESTIMATED VOLUME OF GAS RELEASED WAS 10,765 MSCF). CON EDISON NOTIFIED THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE STAFF (DPS STAFF), NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION (NYCDEP), AND THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION (USDOT). MULTIPLE MEDIA OUTLETS WERE ON LOCATION DURING THE INCIDENT. MULTIPLE AGENCIES WERE ALSO ON LOCATION, INCLUDING FDNY, NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT (NYPD), NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION (NYCDOT), NEW YORK CITY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT (NYCEM), AND DPS STAFF. THE AFFECTED SUPPLY MAIN WAS REPLACED AND RETURNED TO SERVICE BY CON EDISON ON JANUARY 19, 2019.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious, not fire-first.

PHMSA standardized cause: OTHER OUTSIDE FORCE DAMAGE — OTHER OUTSIDE FORCE DAMAGE.

PHMSA indexed costs: $957,152 reported total cost, $473,676.564 in 1984 dollars, $1,109,739.323 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.