We tend to think of infrastructure as bridges and roads. Now in the 21st century we think of fiber optics. Rarely do we think of pipelines, and if we do we conjure up images of caribou keeping warm in winter near the Alaska pipeline. There is another pipeline story. This week the subject of pipeline safety was the focus of a hearing in the Senate Subcommittee on Surface Transportation. In the busyness of the end of summer, few people paid attention to the pipeline accident on Sept. 9 in San Bruno, Calif....
The Pipeline Safety Trust has suggested some basics, and Congress can't seem to get it together to make sure that oversight of this kind of infrastructure takes place....
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Comment: The investigation of the 1937 Texas School Explosion concluded that, even though officials ignored warnings and took short cuts they weren’t responsible because they were just "average individuals, ignorant or indifferent to the need for precautionary measures, where they cannot, in their lack of knowledge, visualize a danger or a hazard." (Court of Inquiry, 1937.) -- Ellie Goldberg
