COLUMBIA GAS TRANSMISSION, LLC — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2019-01-21

Gas transmission and gathering incident in CHARLESTON, KANAWHA County, WV. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 5406 NATURAL GAS released, $0 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: 20190010.

Operator ID: 2616.

Reported incident date: 1/21/2019 3:40.

Location detail: 00+00

Cause detail: MALFUNCTION OF CONTROL/RELIEF EQUIPMENT

Cause detail: ON 01/21/2019 AT 3:40 AM EST, AT LANHAM COMPRESSOR STATION, LOCATED IN CHARLESTON, WV, KANAWHA COUNTY, AN EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN SYSTEM (ESD) VALVE (C9-149) MALFUNCTIONED AND OPENED RELEASING NATURAL GAS TO THE ATMOSPHERE. THE OPERATING PRESSURE OF THE PIPING AT THE TIME OF THE RELEASE WAS 742 PSIG (920 MAOP). THE GAS WAS RELEASED THROUGH A 4" ESD BLOWOFF STACK IN A DESIGNED/SAFE LOCATION. THE PUBLIC HEARD THE GAS RELEASE AND NOTIFIED THE MONITORING CENTER, PART OF THE CONTROL ROOM AT 3:43 AM. OPERATIONS PERSONNEL WERE CALLED TO THE SCENE, ARRIVING AT 4:45 AM AND MANUALLY ISOLATED THE VALVE AT APPROX. 5:00 AM, AS THE REST OF THE STATION CONTINUED TO RUN. THE GAS VOLUME THAT WAS RELEASED WAS CALCULATED AT 5,406 MCF. NO DEATHS, INJURIES, FIRE, EXPLOSION OR EVACUATIONS RESULTED FROM THE RELEASE. THE PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION OF THE FAILURE DETERMINED ICE HAD ACCUMULATED IN THE VALVE CONTROLLER/TRIGGER DEVICE CAUSING THE VALVE TO ACTUATE.

PHMSA trend classification: not significant, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE — MALFUNCTION OF CONTROL/RELIEF EQUIPMENT.

PHMSA indexed costs: $18,380 reported total cost, $19,055.381 in 1984 dollars, $23,397.113 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.