Report criticizes response to Plymouth gas explosion

A recent report from a Seattle-based think tank criticizes the owner of a liquid natural gas facility southwest of the Tri-Cities where an explosion and leak in March 2014 injured several workers, forced hundreds from their homes temporarily and shut down rail, river and highway traffic.

Tarika Powell, a researcher for Sightline Institute, said pipeline company Williams Partners downplayed the cause of the explosion and how extensively it repaired damage to the Northwest Pipeline facility, due to begin operating again this spring.

No Williams Partners officials were interviewed for the report and “unfortunately it contains numerous inaccuracies,” said Tom Droege, spokesman for the company.

“We have cooperated in a full and transparent manner with the various agencies throughout the investigative process. We have also worked with the energy industry to share lessons learned and advise others of our findings,” he said.

He also noted the company met with members of the Plymouth community to answer questions and address concerns related to the incident. “Throughout the process, our No. 1 priority has been the safety of our employees and the community,” Droege said.

Powell pointed a finger at lax oversight of companies handling liquid natural gas, or LNG. Current regulations make it easy for Williams Partners to gloss over the effects of the explosion, from injuries caused to the evacuation of the nearby community of Plymouth. And despite the company’s acknowledgment that nearly 600,000 gallons of natural gas were lost, it does not count as a spill because it evaporated.

“When companies don’t have to provide these details, the information that the LNG industry reports about safety at its facilities becomes completely unreliable,” the report said. “As more companies propose LNG terminals in the Pacific Northwest, who will parse the industry’s semantics to determine whether or not the industry is as safe as it claims to be?”

Five people were injured in the explosion, which was caused by gas mixing with air and igniting inside the facility’s equipment, which wasn’t properly purged of gas during maintenance operations in the days before. Four of those workers were treated and later released, while one worker was hospitalized for burns. Shrapnel from the explosion damaged one of the facility’s storage tanks and other buildings.

About 1,000 Plymouth residents and agricultural workers working within a few miles of the LNG facility were evacuated. Some reported feeling sick after inhaling the vapor cloud that resulted from the explosion. A nearby rail line was damaged and dozens of trains were delayed until repairs were completed.

Before the explosion, the facility was last inspected in November 2013 by the state Utilities and Transportation Commission and no issues were found.

A spokeswoman with Williams Partners said at the time of the incident that the company went above and beyond what is required for safety and maintenance and spends a lot of time and money on making sure that its pipelines are well maintained and inspected regularly.

Powell told the Herald she became interested in the Plymouth facility after reading reports of an ongoing gas leak near Los Angeles caused by aging infrastructure.

Despite Williams Partners filing its initial report to the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, Sightline said the company was slow to file supplementary information and its reports were short on details about the damage.

Droege said the company filed its incident report 30 days after the explosion with preliminary information, and it was updated in December 2015 after its investigation was completed. “The incident report will not and cannot be finalized until the facility is returned to service,” he said in a statement.

The company failed to note that shrapnel created two leaks, not one as it has reported, in a storage tank as observed by emergency responders, Sightline said. Word choice also plays a role in the company’s filed reports, as the company doesn’t have to report the incident as an LNG spill as the substance, stored at minus-260 degrees Fahrenheit, warmed and evaporated from the leaks.

Federal rules and standards for safety reporting on such incidents make it easy for Williams Partners and other LNG companies to pad their safety records, Powell said. Only injuries requiring overnight hospitalization and deaths from LNG accidents are ever fully documented in official records, meaning most of the injured workers and local residents affected by the vapor cloud aren’t recorded.

“You can have a severe injury where you don’t stay the night in the hospital,” Powell told the Herald.

Williams Partners officials wrote in a company newsletter that repairs to the damaged tank were ongoing in late 2015 and an examination “provided favorable results” and that it “is in excellent shape.”

“The hole in the outer tank has been patched, and insulation is being installed between the inner and outer tank,” the newsletter read. “We estimate that Tank 1 will be back in service by mid-May.”

But Powell wrote there’s little information available about the extent of repairs. The storage tanks, installed in the mid-1970s, already were old given their expected operating lifespan of 25 to 30 years. They also lacked the concrete shell that many modern LNG tanks possess and Williams Partners hasn’t disclosed whether that was being added to them as well as how they’ve repaired the leaks.

“We do think there should be better safeguards around these facilities,” Powell said, adding the official federal report on the incident won’t be released until after the Plymouth facility reopens. “They don’t have the strength to protect the communities around them.”

This story was originally published February 9, 2016 at 6:01 PM with the headline "Report criticizes response to Plymouth gas explosion."