Delay after alarm calls California spill response into question – KIRO 7 news Seattle

Amplify Energy emergency response plan for a major oil spill like the one it is currently facing on the southern California coast depended heavily on a quick shutdown of the San Pedro Bay pipeline if its sensors registered a sudden loss of pressure. This is not what happened, investigators revealed on Tuesday.

After an alarm went off in a company control room at 2:30 a.m. Saturday – signaling a rupture that would spill tens of thousands of gallons of crude into the Pacific Ocean – the company waited more than three hours for shut down the pipeline at 6 a.m. : 1:00 a.m., based on preliminary findings from a spill investigation.

The Houston-based company took three extra hours to notify the U.S. Coast Guard’s National Response Center of the oil spill, investigators said, further slowing the response to an accident Amplify workers spent years to prepare.

“How come it took so long?” That’s a good question, ”said Richard Kuprewicz, pipeline consultant and private accident investigator from Redmond, Washington. “If you have any doubts, your action should be to close and close. … Something is wrong here.

Pipeline control room alarms don’t always mean a leak and can be triggered by many factors – from a faulty signal from a sensor along the line to a pump that disconnects and causes a pressure change. suddenly, according to Kuprewicz and other industry experts. . But alarms are also supposed to trigger immediate follow-up actions to quickly determine if something is wrong.

It is not known why this process took hours in San Pedro Bay, potentially exacerbating a spill that left birds and fish smeared with oil and raised concerns about wider environmental impacts.

The cause of the pipeline rupture just off Los Angeles is still under investigation. Early findings indicate that a ship’s anchor could grab the line and drag it across the seabed, tearing a gash in the steel pipe half an inch (12.7 millimeters) thick.

The timeline for the company’s response appears to contradict statements by Amplify CEO Martyn Willshire, who told reporters on Monday that the company first became aware of the spill after receiving a report from a boat of a sparkle in the water.

Willshire acknowledged that the company’s equipment was supposed to help detect spills, then said: “We had no notice there was a leak” before the report of the burst.

In documents released Tuesday detailing the company’s actions, federal transportation officials did not comment on the delay in closing the line or reveal any potential explanation Amplify executives might have offered.

Company representatives did not respond to emailed questions about the time between the alarm and shutdown.

Problems with faulty leak detection procedures have plagued the industry for years, including during 2010 oil spill that polluted 40 miles (64 kilometers) of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. In this instance, an Enbridge Inc. pipeline released at least 843,000 gallons (3.2 million liters) of crude in 17 hours, even as alarms continued to sound in a control room in the business.

The company then settled the pollution violations in the case for $ 176 million.

The accident prompted calls for stricter leak detection rules and the installation of more automatic or remote-controlled shut-off valves that can quickly stop the flow of oil during a leak.

A shortage of such valves was also cited in another pipeline accident in 2010 – an explosion at a natural gas transmission line in San Bruno, Calif., Which left eight people dead and dozens injured after the lawsuit continued. line. burning like a huge blowtorch for almost 90 minutes before the line is stopped manually.

Federal officials began to develop new leak detection and valve rules under former President Barack Obama, but they were never finalized.

A new rule proposed last year under former President Donald Trump and awaiting final approval would require more valves only for new or replaced pipelines, and not for the thousands of miles already in use. The change came after oil industry lobby groups, including the American Petroleum Institute, said upgrading lines with valves would cost up to $ 1.5 million per device.

The pending rule does not set standards for leak detection, giving companies a lot of leeway in how sensitive their equipment is to leaks, said Bill Caram of the Pipeline Safety Trust, a Bellingham-based group, in Washington State, which advocates for safer pipelines.

“This worries us about our country’s aging energy infrastructure,” Caram said. “We are concerned that this will become an increasingly important problem.”

John Stoody, of the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, said companies and industry groups are working hard to improve leak detection technologies. Fine-tuning equipment is part of this, to ensure that businesses can detect even small leaks without having to respond to false alarms.

“If you’re riddled with false alarms, people have a harder time responding,” Stoody said.

___

Follow Matthew Brown on Twitter: @MatthewBrownAP

Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.