September 27, 2010

Know your gas pipeline...

HIDDEN POWER | Gas pipeline safety issues resurface after California tragedy by Diane Dietz, The Register-Guard, appeared in print: Sunday, Sep 26, 2010


..."Most U.S. transmission lines are old. The average age of pipes in the national system — including those carrying gases and liquid gasoline — is 50 years, Weimer said. “But what matters more is how well the pipeline has been maintained, operated and inspected,” he said. 

“We’ve seen brand new pipelines that go to failure in just a few years because they weren’t maintained and operated well. In other places we’ve looked there’s 70-year-old pipelines and they’re still in good shape,” he said. 

Mike Haberkorn, who oversees the 66-year-old pipeline that serves Western Oregon from Vancouver to Grants Pass, said pipelines are basically ageless. “If they’re operated and maintained property, they virtually last forever,” he said.

September 25, 2010

...lack of a strong safety culture in the natural gas industry

“I believe there is a lack of a strong safety culture in the natural gas industry,” said Jim Hall, the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board from 1994 to 2001 and an experienced pipeline investigator. “When you have a lack of enforcement activity, you end up with a tragedy.”

Read  Gas Blasts Spur Questions on Oversight
NYTIMES September 24, 2010

September 21, 2010

Teaching Safely, Teaching Safety

Information and Tools

Laboratory Self-Audit: Setting Up Your Audit
Classrooms and laboratories practicing pollution prevention are safer for students and in most cases easier on the school budget besides being fairly easy to implement. However, changes in thinking must occur to make the initial effort a success. Lay the groundwork for change before using the Self-Audit Checklists included in this resource. Start with some basic grassroots organizing using these suggestions or some of the many community development resources available. The result will be a program that works for your school community.  Read more

Checklists
Posters

September 20, 2010

Guidance and Tools for Schools

Safeguard Against Chemicals in Your School: EPA’s Schools Chemical Cleanout Campaign (SC3)

From school maintenance closets to high school chemistry labs to vocational school classrooms, schools house a variety of chemicals. These chemicals can have many useful applications: they help keep school areas clean, demonstrate chemistry lessons and teach students new mechanical skills. But when these chemicals are mismanaged, they can put students and school staff at risk from spills, fires and other accidental exposures — incidents that may result in lost school days and require millions of dollars to mitigate.

The Schools Chemical Cleanout Campaign (SC3) gives K-12 schools the guidance and tools they need to responsibly manage chemicals, thus reducing the risks and hazards posed by mismanagement. The goals of SC3 are to bring together administrators, teachers, maintenance staff...

September 14, 2010

Undetected: A deadly 1937 school explosion led to odorization requirements for combustible gas

Looking Back...  Undetected: A deadly 1937 school explosion led to odorization requirements for combustible gas, NFPA Journal®, September/October 2010

With few exceptions, the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations requires that "a combustible gas in a distribution line must contain a natural odorant or be odorized so that, at a concentration in air of one-fifth of the lower explosive limit, the gas is readily detectable by a person with a normal sense of smell."

Read more

Gas pipeline dangers

Pipeline explosion near San Francisco highlights dangers of gas infrastructure. An ominous theme has emerged from the wreckage of a deadly pipeline explosion in California: There are thousands of pipes just like it around the U.S. Associated Press
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39157451/ns/us_news

September 12, 2010

"Were there reports that there were odors escaping from the pipeline? If there were those reports, what actions took place in response to those complaints?"

6 people missing after California gas line explosion by the CNN Wire Staff http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/09/12/california.fire/?hpt=T2

September 11, 2010

Myths and Misleading Statements About Oil and Natural Gas Pipelines

Myths and Misleading Statements About Oil and Natural Gas Pipelines
By Lois Epstein, P.E., Senior Engineer
Oil and Gas Industry Specialist
Cook Inlet Keeper
... lois@inletkeeper.org
July 2004,
Pipeline Safety Trust  www.pstrust.org

Blast shows dangers, scarcity of gas explosions

Blast shows dangers, scarcity of gas explosions
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The natural-gas explosion that rocked a San Francisco suburb Thursday evening serves as a stark reminder of the dangers posed by the pressure cooker of pipelines crisscrossing the country.

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September 03, 2010

Webinar: School Chemical Cleanout Sept 15

Webinar: Prevent Air Pollution at the Source: School Chemical Cleanout
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM EDT

Keep your school safe and free from hazardous chemicals. Chemical mismanagement can lead to dangerous exposures and risks - jeopardizing the safety of students and staff by polluting the air. Join experts from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Schools Chemical Cleanout Campaign and Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools Program, as well as the representatives from school  district's and private industry, as they explain effective methods to safely manage chemicals that are used in schools every day