The destruction caused by a pipeline explosion can be catastrophic, both in the blast zone and in areas contaminated by exposure to volatile petrochemicals. | Ohio EPA photo obtained by Ohio Sierra Club through open records requestThe inspectors warned for months that the construction crew was burying the pipeline on unstable ground. In at least a dozen reports, they described soupy soil, landslides and failed efforts to contain runoff. But the crew kept working as the problems mounted.
But that’s not the system that exists, based on a year-long investigation by POLITICO’s E&E News. On jobs like Revolution, the inspectors report to the pipeline companies themselves. Regulators at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Department of Transportation and state agencies leave the monitoring of pipeline construction almost exclusively to this network of private inspectors paid by the developers.
New pipeline projects have met fierce resistance, as farmers from Illinois to North Dakota insist they don’t trust the companies or their safety inspectors. | DroneBase via AP A federal watchdog agency found FERC’s process for selecting inspection companies and environmental reviewers creates a “potential appearance of improper influence” — in part because pipeline companies are given too much control over the process, including the power to decide which inspection companies can submit bids.
“There’s a general reluctance to add staff like inspectors, because it upsets the industry,” said John Quigley, former head of the Department of Environmental Protection in Pennsylvania. “The buck stops at legislators’ desks, whether it’s the General Assembly or Congress.” Company officials said their practices were “reasonably intended” to protect from landslides. But, they explained, there had been “unprecedented rainfall” in the area before the explosion.Though Energy Transfer had hired inspectors,, it ordered them not to direct the work of contractors, and the problems weren’t fixed. Its report said efforts to control erosion were “pitiful, to put it mildly.
Thus, the bulk of the work overseeing the rapid growth of the country’s pipeline network, and its compliance with new pipeline regulations addressing safety and environmental goals, is left to a small army of inspectors hired and paid by the companies themselves. The Interstate Natural Gas Association of America says thereBrigham McCown, one of the original leaders of the agency in its early days during the George W. Bush administration, acknowledges that PHMSA is understaffed.