Authoritative Study on Pipeline Control Contradicts CUSD Analysis

The analysis and conclusion in CUSD's latest pipeline study is perched upon an exceedingly optimistic estimate of the amount of fuel that could flow from a ruptured or leaking pipeline. It is argued that the pipeline would be shutoff, perhaps automatically, in less than five minutes following detection of a leak. Nobody that I’ve contacted believes this to be realistic.

An authoritative source on this subject is the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). In 2005, NTSB issued a study on this very subject. Here is the study abstract:

In the pipeline industry, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are used to collect data from pipeline sensors in real time and display these data to humans who monitor the data from remote sites and remotely operate pipeline control equipment. This National Transportation Safety Board study was designed to examine how pipeline companies use SCADA systems to monitor and record operating data and to evaluate the role of SCADA systems in leak detection. The number of hazardous liquid accidents investigated by the Safety Board in which leaks went undetected after indications of a leak on the SCADA interface was the impetus for this study.

The full study is quite readable. If you take the time to look it over, you will conclude that the leak estimates in CUSD's latest study are quite unrealistic. Unfortunately, to gain this knowledge, you’ll have to accept “SCADA” into your vocabulary, along with a few other similarly obscure acronyms!

If enough fuel leaks from the nearby segment of pipeline, it will flow to the school, under the school, and it will disrupt the La Pata rescue and evacuation route. There is no physical impediment to prevent fuel from reaching the school site. The NTSB study is filled with examples of leaks that went undetected for an hour or more, and several instances in which pipeline operators restarted pumps after automatic controls had shutdown a pipeline due to an actual leak.

If the technical jargon is just too much to follow, please keep this one fact in mind: Fuel flows through this pipeline at a rate of 4200 gallons per minute (that's $17,640 per minute, at the price I paid this morning)!