SUNOCO PIPELINE L.P. — Hazardous liquid — incident on 2015-03-26

Hazardous liquid incident in ASTON, DELAWARE County, PA. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 0.35 REFINED AND/OR PETROLEUM PRODUCT (NON-HVL) WHICH IS A LIQUID AT AMBIENT CONDITIONS released, $500 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: 20150145.

Operator ID: 18718.

Reported incident date: 3/26/2015 9:02.

Location detail: TWIN OAKS STA

Cause detail: MALFUNCTION OF CONTROL/RELIEF EQUIPMENT

Cause detail: AN OPERATOR DETECTED A DIESEL LEAK AT A RAPID FLASH ANALYZER UNIT WHILE MAKING ROUNDS. THE OPERATOR NOTIFIED CHAIN OF COMMAND AND PLACED SPILL ABSORBENTS TO COLLECT PRODUCT ON GROUND. THE SOURCE OF THE DIESEL WAS IDENTIFIED AS THE RAPID FLASH ANALYZER UNIT SAMPLE RECOVERY SYSTEM RESERVOIR TANK. THE SAMPLE RECOVERY SYSTEM PORTION OF THE RAPID FLASH ANALYZER UNIT DID NOT OPERATE AS WARRANTED BY THE MANUFACTURER. THE SAMPLE RETURN PUMP WAS DISABLED DUE TO A FAILED FUSE IN THE CONTROL MODULE. TH ANALYZER CONTINUED TO SAMPLE THE DIESEL AND ANALYZE THE FLASH. THE 15 GALLON SAMPLE RECOVERY RESERVOIR TANK FILLED THEN OVERFLOWED VIA THE ATMOSPHERIC BREATHER VENT. INVESTIGATION DETERMINED THAT A FAILED 1 AMP FUSE IN THE RAPID FLASH UNIT CONTROL ELECTRONICS PREVENTED THE UNIT'S SAMPLE RECOVERY RETURN PUMP FROM OPERATING AS EXPECTED. THE UNIT WAS PROVIDED FROM THE MANUFACTURER WITH A 1 AMP FUSE IN THE CONTROL MODULE INSTEAD OF A 3 AMP FUSE CLEARLY SHOWING A MANUFACTURER'S DEFECT.

PHMSA trend classification: not significant, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE — MALFUNCTION OF CONTROL/RELIEF EQUIPMENT.

PHMSA indexed costs: $3,530 reported total cost, $1,770.884 in 1984 dollars, $4,361.142 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.