http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/05/03/exclusive-release-inspection-reports-transcanada-s-keystone-pipeline-expose-risk-future-spills
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Exclusive: Release of Inspection Reports From TransCanada’s Keystone
Pipeline Expose Risk of Future Spills
By Julie Dermansky • Tuesday, May 3, 2016 - 03:58
The US government agency responsible for interstate pipelines recorded a
catalog of problems with the construction of TransCanada’s Keystone
Pipeline and the Cushing Extension, a DeSmog investigation has found.
Inspectors at the US Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and
Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) observed TransCanada’s
contractors violating construction design codes established to ensure a
pipeline’s safety, according to inspection reports released to DeSmog
under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Evan Vokes, former TransCanada materials engineer-turned-whistleblower,
told DeSmog the problems uncovered in the reports show issues that could
lead to future pipeline failures and might also explain some of the
failures the pipeline had already suffered.
Vokes claimed PHMSA was negligent in failing to use its powers to shut
down construction of the pipeline when inspectors found contractors
doing work incorrectly. “You cannot have a safe pipeline without code
compliance,” Vokes said.
The Keystone and the Cushing Extension are part of TransCanada’s
Keystone Pipeline network, giving the company a path to move diluted
Canadian tar sands, also known as dilbit, to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
The Keystone pipeline network is made up of the Keystone Pipeline (Phase
I), that runs from Hardistry, Alberta, to Steele City, Nebraska, and the
Keystone-Cushing extension (Phase ll), from Steele City to Cushing,
Oklahoma. There, it connects to the southern route of the Keystone XL,
renamed the Gulf Coast Extension (Phase III), that runs from Cushing,
Oklahoma to the Gulf Coast in Texas.
The final phase of TransCanada’s network, the Keystone XL, (Phase lV),
originating in Alberta, is meant to connect to the Gulf Coast pipeline.
But KXL is blocked for now since President Obama rejected a permit
TransCanada needs to finish its network.
According to the inspection reports PHMSA provided, its inspectors
observed TransCanada violating construction design codes established to
assure a pipeline’s safety. Inspectors wrote that some contractors
working on the Keystone were not familiar with the construction
specifications.
The reports show that when PHMSA inspectors found improper work, they
explained the correct procedures — such as telling welders the correct
temperature and speed they needed to weld at according to specifications.
In one instance, a PHMSA inspector found a coating inspector using an
improperly calibrated tool, so the PHMSA representative instructed him
on the proper setting.
The inspection reports also describe regulators identifying visible
problems with pipe sections as they were placed in ditches, and of
ditches not properly prepared to receive the pipe.
“Regulators did nothing to stop TransCanada from building a pipeline
that was bound to fail,” Vokes told DeSmog after reviewing the
construction inspection reports for the Keystone 1 pipeline and the
Cushing Extension.
According to Vokes, those welders and inspectors should have been fired
because problems with welds and coatings can lead to slow and hard to
detect leaks.
“It is impossible to believe the welders and inspectors cited in the
PHMSA reports were operator qualified, which is a mandated requirement
by PHMSA,” Vokes said.
TransCanada insists it used qualified contractors.
Matthew John, a communications specialist for TransCanada, told DeSmog:
“In fact, the Special Permit conditions for Keystone Phase 1 and the
Cushing Extension included a requirement for TransCanada to implement a
Construction ‘Operator Qualification’ program. We only use highly
trained and specially certified contractors in the construction of the
Keystone System.”
But the PHMSA inspection reports cast doubt on the effectiveness of the
‘Operator Qualification’ program.
Vokes said: “How is it possible that PHMSA could find multiple
violations at multiple sites on multiple days in multiple years?”
“It isn’t a regulator’s job to instruct contractors how to comply to
code,” Vokes said.
“If the construction crew was not familiar with the correct procedures,
they shouldn’t have been allowed to continue constructing the pipeline.”
Part of Vokes’s job as a pipeline materials engineer was to ensure
TransCanada adhered to the accepted codes of pipeline construction set
by institutions such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
“Straying from the adopted code is not only illegal, but it compromises
the integrity of a pipeline,” he said.
Vokes says that during his five years with the company he did his best
to get TransCanada to identify and solve its problems. But he said the
company continued to emphasize cost and speed rather than compliance.
This compelled Vokes to send damning evidence of code violations to the
Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta, the
Canadian National Energy Board, and PHMSA.
He was fired after airing TransCanada’s failures, which did not surprise
him. He is, however, surprised regulators in the U.S. and Canada
continue to let TransCanada and other companies build pipelines that are
not built to safety standards.
Vokes told DeSmog he had sent senior PHMSA investigator Gery Bauman a
“binder full of information” showing issues with TransCanada's
construction methods. “Bauman seemed concerned and told me that he would
look into my allegations, but blew me off.” According to Vokes, Bauman
stopped responding to his emails.
PHMSA confirmed it received documents Vokes sent to Bauman and reviewed
them. Bauman and other communication specialists at PHMSA were asked by
DeSmog to comment on the communications with Vokes, but have not responded.
According to Vokes, the documents he gave Bauman contained proof that
TransCanada didn’t follow minimum safety standards when building the
Luddem pumping station — the same pump station that spilled about 400
gallons of oil in North Dakota in 2011.
Bauman witnessed some of the construction problems firsthand. An
inspection report on the construction of the Keystone Pipeline bearing
his name, dated 06/15/2009 to 06/19/2009, states:
“G. Bauman and M. Kieba conducted an inspection of Spread 3B out of
Aberdeen, SD. The issues and concerns noted by Gery ranged from coating
anomalies not being repaired to bolts causing coating damage.
Additionally, a joint of pipe was found with a three-inch section where
the wall of the pipe was measured to be 0.356”. Gery also inquired about
the CP [cathodic protection] of the line that had been in the ground for
almost a year, and line markers to help prevent any possible third party
damage.”
Vokes believes the problems Bauman described could lead to a spill. He
explained regulators should have required an integrity test to determine
if a sleeve (protective layer) was required, but the report makes no
mention whether such a test was ordered.
DeSmog asked Bauman and the PHMSA if the issues Bauman reported on
Spread 3B could lead to a spill and an integrity test or any other kind
of follow-up work was ordered, but did not receive a reply.
Bauman warned Kinder Morgan, another pipeline industry giant, on similar
“inappropriate” construction practices when he inspected REX, a natural
gas pipeline that runs from Colorado to Pennsylvania completed in 2009.
PHMSA accepted assurances form Kinder Morgan that remedial actions would
be taken. But whatever actions Kinder Morgan took, they did not prevent
a gas leak causing evacuation of nearby homes in southeastern Ohio or a
slew of other incidents.
After reviewing the construction inspection reports obtained by DeSmog
on the Keystone and the Cushing Extension, Vokes said that regulators
cite numerous problems grave enough that, in his opinion, PHMSA should
have shut the project down. He said PHMSA’s apparent acceptance that
operators would change their ways showed the agency learned nothing from
REX.
Another PHMSA inspection report, dated June 2009, indicates TransCanada
ignored basic protocols by working on the Keystone pipeline without
written specifications. “That gave PHMSA grounds to shut the work down
on the spot,” Vokes said.
“The PHMSA inspection report dated 10/05/2009 to 10/09/2009 foretells
the kind of leak that led to the spill from a section of Keystone
Pipeline in South Dakota,” Vokes said. The spill, discovered on 2 April,
leaked an estimated 16,800 gallons of dilbit because of a faulty
transition weld.
The report states: “There has been a problem with cracked welds on this
spread, which is well known to the personnel involved. The problem got
worse with twenty cracks the last seven working days. The mainline
welded out on Wednesday, October 7, 2009.”
The PHMSA inspection report dated 08/24/2009 to 08/28/2009 calls out a
coating inspector for using an unauthorized tool, stating: “The
procedures call for a utility knife of a specific size to be used for
performing the coating V notch adhesion test. The coating inspector used
a lock blade knife for the inspection.”
“Why not just use a pocket knife or prison shank while the coating
inspector is at it?” Vokes joked.
Though PHMSA chose not to fine TransCanada for any code violations
during construction of the Keystone and Cushing Extension phases after
the Keystone Pipeline became operational, PHMSA fined the company twice
for construction violations following incidents that required the
Keystone pipeline to be shut down for repair.
This included the spill at the Luddem pump station in 2011 and an
extreme corrosion event that was detected in multiple spots in 2012 as
well as other probable violations.
Most recently, following the South Dakota spill, PHMSA issued a
Corrective Order Notice to TransCanada.
“These actions don’t change the fact that any pipeline not built to code
is an accident waiting to happen,” Vokes said.
For regulators to allow companies like TransCanada to break the rules
seems criminal to him. “It goes against the code of ethics licensed
engineers take that require them to put the safety of people and the
environment first,” he said.
Inside Climate News reported that Jeffrey Wiese, a top PHMSA
administrator, informed a group of industry insiders that PHMSA has
“very few tools to work with” in enforcing safety rules.
But PHMSA does have the power to shut a job site down, to fine operators
and require additional integrity tests if regulators have reason to
doubt a pipeline’s safety.
A PHMSA public affairs specialist told DeSmog: “PHMSA can refer any
discovery of possible criminal activity to either the Department’s
Office of the Inspector General or the Department of Justice for further
investigation and action. Those agencies may initiate criminal
investigations and prosecution as a result of, or separate from a PHMSA
referral.”
DeSmog asked PHMSA why inspectors did not shut down construction work or
fine TransCanada for breaking rules on the Keystone Pipeline and Cushing
Extension projects. PHMSA has not responded.
Despite problems with the Keystone Pipeline prior to the 2 April spill,
TransCanada’s CEO Russ Girling boasted about the Keystone Pipeline
network’s safety last year on the occasion of the company transporting
its billionth barrel of Canadian and U.S. crude oil from Canada to the
Gulf Coast.
TransCanada spokesperson John said: “Any deficiencies in code compliance
identified during the construction of the pipeline were addressed prior
to it being put into service. The Keystone System is safe and
TransCanada has one of the best operating records in the entire industry.”
But Vokes asked about the violations that inspectors didn’t catch. “If a
pipeline is not built to code,” Vokes insists, “it’s not if the pipeline
will spill, it is when.”
DeSmog asked PHMSA for final evaluation reports on the Keystone Pipeline
and the Cushing Extension after reviewing a Final Evaluation Report for
the Gulf Coast Pipeline obtained through a FOIA request.
But PHMSA claims no such reports were conducted for the other two
pipelines. Background information provided to DeSmog by the agency
indicates that different regions do different kinds of paperwork, which
might explain why no final evaluation reports exist for these pipelines.
PHMSA did not quantify what percentage of the inspection reports
conducted on the two pipelines it provided to DeSmog.
“It is hard to believe some kind of final inspection report was not done
for those pipelines. The Keystone Pipeline was the largest pipeline
project in the United States at that time,” Vokes said.
The agency’s website states: “PHMSA inspects pipeline construction to
assure compliance with these requirements. Inspectors review
operator-prepared construction procedures to verify that they conform to
regulatory requirements. Inspectors then observe construction activities
in the field to assure that they are conducted in accordance with the
procedures.”
The newly released PHMSA inspection reports, minus a final evaluation
report, raise further questions about the integrity of the Keystone
Pipeline and the Cushing Extension.
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