COLUMBIA GAS TRANSMISSION, LLC — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2017-02-14

Gas transmission and gathering incident in Not Within a Municipality, MONTGOMERY County, KY. Reported cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 15024 NATURAL GAS released, $500,000 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: 20170022.

Operator ID: 2616.

Reported incident date: 2/14/2017 9:54.

Location detail: 500+33

Cause detail: DESIGN-, CONSTRUCTION-, INSTALLATION-, OR FABRICATION-RELATED

Cause detail: ON FEBRUARY 14, 2017 AN ODOR OF GAS COMPLAINT WAS CALLED IN AT 09:54 AM TO THE LOCAL DISTRIBUTION COMPANY (COLUMBIA GAS OF KENTUCKY) MONITORING CENTER BY A LANDOWNER ON HARPER RIDGE ROAD. THE LDC MONITORING CENTER DISPATCHED AN EMPLOYEE WHO ARRIVED AT THE SITE AT APPROXIMATELY 10:13 AM. AFTER ASSESSING THE SITUATION, THE LDC EMPLOYEE NOTIFIED THE LDC MONITORING CENTER TO ALERT THE FIRE DEPARTMENT AND CALLED A COLUMBIA GAS TRANSMISSION LLC EMPLOYEE AT 10:20AM. THE COLUMBIA GAS TRANSMISSION EMPLOYEE RESPONDED AND NOTIFIED THE COLUMBIA GAS TRANSMISSION MONITORING CENTER AT 10:32 AM OF THE POTENTIAL LEAK. THE EMPLOYEE ARRIVED ON SITE AT 10:45 AM AND DETERMINED THAT THE LEAK WAS ON 30" LINE EM-7 OWNED AND OPERATED BY COLUMBIA GAS TRANSMISSION LLC. COLUMBIA GAS TRANSMISSION FIELD EMPLOYEES WERE NOTIFIED AND RESPONDED. THE LOCAL FIRE DEPARTMENT ALSO RESPONDED AND EVACUATED 6 FAMILIES. COLUMBIA GAS TRANSMISSION CALLED THE NATIONAL RESPONSE CENTER AT 11:39 AM ON FEBRUARY 14, 2017, AND WAS PLACED ON HOLD UNTIL 12:01 PM. THE PIPELINE WAS REMOVED FROM SERVICE. THE PIPELINE WAS EXCAVATED AND A CRACK FOUND ON A WELD ELBOW FITTING NEAR A GIRTH WELD. THE PIPELINE WAS REPAIRED WITH REPLACEMENT PIPE AND AN WELD ELBOW FITTING, AND PLACED BACK INTO SERVICE ON FEBRUARY 20, 2017. THE METALLURGICAL AND GEOTECHNICAL ANALYSES HAVE BEEN PROVIDED TO PHMSA.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD — CONSTRUCTION, INSTALLATION OR FABRICATION-RELATED.

PHMSA indexed costs: $722,350 reported total cost, $400,249.651 in 1984 dollars, $865,685.487 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.