COLUMBIA GAS TRANSMISSION, LLC — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2014-07-02

Gas transmission and gathering incident in LONG EDDY, SULLIVAN COUNTY County, NY. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 8038 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: 20140080.

Operator ID: 2616.

Reported incident date: 7/2/2014 14:12.

Location detail: ESD VALVE

Cause detail: MALFUNCTION OF CONTROL/RELIEF EQUIPMENT

Cause detail: ON JULY 2, 2014, A MILLENNIUM COMPANY COMPRESSOR STATION (CS) LOCATED IN SULLIVAN COUNTY, NY WAS SUBJECT TO AN UN-INTENDED RELEASE OF NATURAL GAS (MATERIAL). THE CS IS HANCOCK, A TRANSMISSION FACILITY THAT IS OPERATED AND MAINTAINED BY COLUMBIA GAS TRANSMISSION, LLC. (COLUMBIA). IT WAS IDENTIFIED THAT THE CS EXPERIENCED AN EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN (ESD) AND BASED ON THE INVESTIGATIONS, THIS ESD WAS DUE TO LOW PNEUMATIC PRESSURE. EMERGENCY VALVES WERE FOUND PARTIALLY OPEN, LEADING TO AN UNINTENTIONAL RELEASE OF MATERIAL ADDING UP TO 8,038 MCF. THE ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS INVESTIGATION REPORT IDENTIFIED THE PROBABLE CAUSE THAT TRIGGERED THE CHAIN OF EVENTS WHICH LED TO AN INCIDENT. RECOMMENDATIONS WERE INITIATED IN ORDER TO PREVENT THE SAME EVENTS FROM RE-OCCURRING IN THE FUTURE. THEY WERE; AN INTRODUCTION TO A LOW-LOW PNEUMATIC PRESSURE SWITCH (80 PSIG SET POINT) AND STATION PNEUMATIC PRESSURE TRANSMITTER HAS BEEN ADDED TO TRIGGER A STATION ESD ON THE LOSS OF STATION PNEUMATIC PRESSURE (IF THE PRESSURE DROPS BELOW 80 PSIG). THIS PROGRAMMING CHANGE WAS IMPLEMENTED ON JULY 2ND, 2014; A FEW HOURS AFTER THE INCIDENT TOOK PLACE. THEN, CONFIRMED PROPER OPERATION OF THE EMERGENCY BACK-UP GENERATOR TO SWITCH TO BACK-UP POWER ON LOSS OF COMMERCIAL POWER TO THE FACILITY. NOTE: INITIAL INCIDENT REPORT NO: 20140080-16463, SUBMITTED ON JULY 28, 2014

PHMSA trend classification: not significant, not serious.

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

PHMSA indexed costs: $36,545 reported total cost, $25,280.692 in 1984 dollars, $31,040.849 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.