IROQUOIS GAS CORP — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2017-09-22

Gas transmission and gathering incident in WADDINGTON, ST. LAWRENCE County, NY. Reported cause: INCORRECT OPERATION. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 140 NATURAL GAS released, $480,000 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: 20170094.

Operator ID: 8310.

Reported incident date: 9/22/2017 14:25.

Location detail: 1.28MP

Cause detail: OTHER INCORRECT OPERATION

Cause detail: ON SEPTEMBER 22, 2017 AT APPROXIMATELY 02:25PM, A RELEASE OF GAS IGNITED DURING THE OPERATION OF A 12 INCH PLUG VALVE AT MLV1 IN WADDINGTON, NY. THE FIRE RESULTED IN ONE EMPLOYEE BEING TREATED FOR BURNS AT A NEARBY HOSPITAL AND RELEASED THAT DAY. IN ADDITION TWO VALVE ACTUATORS AND OTHER SMALL EQUIPMENT WAS DAMAGED AFTER INVESTIGATING, THE SOURCE OF THE INITIATING SPARK THAT IGNITED THE VENTING GAS WAS NOT ABLE TO BE POSITIVELY IDENTIFIED. IN ADDITION, THERE WAS NO INDICATIONS OF A COMPONENT FAILURE THAT COULD HAVE LEAD TO A SPARK. ALL REGULATORS AND RELIEF VALVES TESTED TO BE IN WORKING ORDER POST-INCIDENT. IROQUOIS IS UPDATING ITS OPERATING PROCEDURES AND ACTUATOR DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS TO ENSURE THE POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTING CAUSES ARE ADDRESSED.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: INCORRECT OPERATION — OTHER INCORRECT OPERATION.

PHMSA indexed costs: $485,396 reported total cost, $237,452.112 in 1984 dollars, $584,307.158 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.