WILLIAMS GAS PIPELINE - TRANSCO — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2002-03-04

Gas transmission and gathering incident in WEST FRIENDSHIP, HOWARD County, MD. Reported cause: 14. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, $350,000 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: 20020029.

Operator ID: 19570.

Reported incident date: 3/4/2002.

Cause detail: BODY OF PIPE

Cause detail: COMPANY EMPLOYEE WHILE MOWING ROW FOUND GAS ESCAPING FROM THE VENT PIPE OF THE CASED CROSSING OF HWY 40. AFTER PIPELINE WAS ISOLATED AND BLOWN DOWN, INVESTIGATION FOUND THE LEAK TO BE INSIDE THE EXTENDED CASING THAT WAS NOT UNDER THE ROAD PAVEMENT. FURTHER EXAMINATION FOUND THAT DUE TO A PIPE MILL DEFECT, AN INTERNAL CRACK DEVELOPED CAUSING THE PINHOLE LEAK.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD — BODY OF PIPE.

PHMSA indexed costs: $350,000 reported total cost, $238,487.127 in 1984 dollars, $544,617.417 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.