COLORADO INTERSTATE GAS CO — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2019-05-02

Gas transmission and gathering incident in FORT MORGAN, MORGAN County, CO. Reported cause: OTHER OUTSIDE FORCE DAMAGE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 12626 NATURAL GAS released, $80,000 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: 20190065.

Operator ID: 2564.

Reported incident date: 5/2/2019 23:54.

Location detail: 11+2414

Cause detail: DAMAGE BY CAR, TRUCK, OR OTHER MOTORIZED VEHICLE/EQUIPMENT NOT ENGAGED IN EXCAVATION

Cause detail: LATE NIGHT MAY 2, 2019, A FARMER WAS RUNNING A TRACTOR PLANTER IN A CIRCULAR PATTERN, PLANTING A FIELD OF CORN. THE TRACTOR PLANTER RAN THROUGH A STEEL BARRICADE AND OVER COLORADO INTERSTATE GAS (CIG) TRANSMISSION'S LINE 4B ABOVEGROUND VALVE STEM/OPERATOR. THIS CAUSED THE VALVE FLANGE TO PULL APART BELOWGROUND AND RELEASE NATURAL GAS. THE FARMER SHUT DOWN THE TRACTOR AND REMOVED HIMSELF FROM THE SCENE. CIG OPERATIONS PERSONNEL SECURED THE SITE AND DETERMINED THAT THERE WAS NO THREAT TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC SINCE THE OCCURRENCE WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIELD, AWAY FROM ANY POPULATED AREAS. THE NEED TO MAINTAIN SERVICE TO CUSTOMERS RESULTED IN ALLOWING THE GAS TO CONTINUE TO RELEASE UNTIL A BYPASS COULD BE CONSTRUCTED AND INSTALLED. FOLLOWING THIS, ISOLATION VALVES WERE CLOSED AND THE PIPELINE WAS BLOWN DOWN TO ALLOW REMOVAL OF THE TRACTOR PLANTER AND REPAIR OF THE FACILITY. THE FACILITY WAS RESTORED TO SERVICE MAY 15, 2019. THE NECESSARY 48-HOUR UPDATE WAS PROVIDED TO THE NRC MAY 4, 2019 AT 13:06 MDT AND WAS ASSIGNED REPORT NUMBER 1244639.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: OTHER OUTSIDE FORCE DAMAGE — VEHICLE NOT ENGAGED IN EXCAVATION.

PHMSA indexed costs: $108,084 reported total cost, $65,179.686 in 1984 dollars, $127,764.383 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.