NORTHERN NATURAL GAS CO — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2003-06-11

Gas transmission and gathering incident in BUSHTON, RICE County, KS. Reported cause: 23. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, $88,700 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: 20030068.

Operator ID: 13750.

Reported incident date: 6/11/2003.

Cause detail: INCORRECT OPERATION

Cause detail: A FOREMAN FOR A 3RD PARTY CONTRACTOR INSTALLING ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT AT THE BUSHTON COMPRESSOR STATION WAS SIMULATING TO ANOTHER 3RD PARTY PERSON HOW THE EMERGENCY SHUT DOWN (ESD) SYSTEM COULD BE ACTIVATED BY A PUSHBUTTON SWITCH. WHEN THE FOREMAN TOUCHED THE SWITCH, THE ESD SYSTEM ACTIVATED SHUTTING IN AND BLOWING DOWN THE COMPRESSOR STATION. THE FOREMAN DID NOT EXPECT THE PUSHBUTTON TO BE SET TO BE SO SENSITIVE. THE INCIDENT WAS REPORTED BECAUSE MORE THAN $50,000 WORTH OF GAS WAS VENTED FROM THE COMPRESSOR STATION YARD BY THE ESD SYSTEM. NO FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION OF EQUIPMENT OCCURRED.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: INCORRECT OPERATION — OTHER INCORRECT OPERATION.

PHMSA indexed costs: $88,700 reported total cost, $59,891.453 in 1984 dollars, $73,537.607 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.