NORTHERN NATURAL GAS CO — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2019-03-20

Current as of 2019-03-20 Government source

Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety AdministrationOfficial agency material

View source

Gas transmission and gathering incident in Not Within a Municipality, WEBSTER County, IA. Reported cause: NATURAL FORCE DAMAGE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 62000 NATURAL GAS released, $100,000 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: 20190042.

Operator ID: 13750.

Reported incident date: 3/20/2019 12:00.

Location detail: 20.88

Cause detail: HEAVY RAINS/FLOODS

Cause detail: ON MARCH 20, 2019, THE OGDEN (IOWA) FIELD OPERATIONS TEAM WAS NOTIFIED BY THE COUNTY SHERIFF OF GAS BLOWING UNDER THE FLOOD WATERS OF THE DES MOINES RIVER NEAR THE TOWN OF LEHIGH, IOWA. THE LEHIGH TAKE-OFF VALVE SETTING IS LOCATED IN THIS AREA AND WAS COMPLETELY SUBMERGED BY THE FLOOD WATERS OF THE DES MOINES, RIVER. THE LEAK WAS SMALL ENOUGH THAT NO LOSS OF SERVICE OCCURRED. THE FIELD OPERATIONS TEAM INSPECTED THE SITE DAILY TO MONITOR THE LEAK AND CHECK ON FLOOD WATER LEVELS. THE SITE WAS STILL UNDER WATER AS OF APRIL 12, 2019 BUT THE LEAK WAS VISIBLE FROM SHORE. THE BUTT WELD BELOW THE BLOW OFF VALVE BETWEEN THE WELD NECK FLANGE AND TEE IS CRACKED PROBABLY DUE TO BEING STRUCK BY FLOATING ICE. THE WELD QUALITY IS NOT SUSPECTED SO IT WON'T BE SENT TO A LABORATORY FOR ANY FURTHER ANALYSIS. THE TAKE-OFF SETTING WAS TOTALLY BYPASSED TO ELIMINATE THE LEAK. THE SECTION OF A-LINE WAS ISOLATED, BLOWN DOWN AND CAPPED. THE TOWN OF LEHIGH, IA IS BEING FED FROM THE B-LINE.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: NATURAL FORCE DAMAGE — HEAVY RAINS/FLOODS.

PHMSA indexed costs: $252,600 reported total cost, $199,380.683 in 1984 dollars, $308,454.033 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.

This material provides agency context. It does not replace binding regulatory text, and its legal effect depends on the underlying authority and facts.