Pipeline Safety Trust annual conference to be webcast live on Nov. 17-18

The Pipeline Safety Trust's annual conference in New Orleans will be webcast live on Nov. 17-18. You can watch by going to this link - http://onlinevideoservice.com/clients/pstrust/2011Webcast/

The agenda for the webcast is below. All times are Central Standard Time. You can also ask questions live by sending an email to: questions@pstrust.org

An archive of the presentation will be available on the Pipeline Safety Trust’s website for a few weeks after the conference as well.

Pipeline Safety - Getting to Zero

Nearly everyone says getting to zero incidents is the primary safety goal, so how do we do that?

Hotel Monteleone, New Orleans, Louisiana
November 17 & 18, 2011
All times are Central Standard Time

DAY ONE -Thursday, Nov. 17

9:00 - 9:10 Welcoming Comments - La Nouvelle Orleans

9:10 - 9:30 Opening Address - La Nouvelle Orleans Christopher Hart, Vice Chairman, National Transportation Safety Board

9:30 - 10:45 Congressional Reauthorization and PHMSA Rulemakings - Enough to avoid future tragedies?
Jeff Wiese, Associate Administrator for Pipeline Safety, PHMSA
Andy Black , President & CEO, Association of Oil Pipe Lines
Alex Oehler, Manager, Federal Government Affairs, NiSource Inc.
Carl Weimer, Executive Director, Pipeline Safety Trust

10:45 - 11:00 Break

11:00 - 12:15 One Year Later - What has the Public Learned from the San Bruno Tragedy?
The Honorable Jackie Speier, U.S. Congresswoman, California (taped )
Jaxon Van Derbeken, Reporter, San Francisco Chronicle
Rene Morales, Executive Director & Kimberly Archie, Chair, Gas
Pipeline Safety Foundation, San Bruno, CA
The Honorable Jim Ruane, Mayor & Connie Jackson, City Manager, San Bruno, CA

12:15 - 1:30 Lunch Break

1:30 - 2:30 San Bruno - Lessons Learned - Were PG&E's practices an anomaly or the tip of a bigger problem? How would we know?
Alan Mayberry, Deputy Associate Administrator for Field Operations, PHMSA
Terry Boss, Senior Vice President of Environment, Safety & Operations, INGAA
Nick Stavropoulos, Executive Vice President, Gas Operations, PG&E
Randy Knepper, National Vice-Chair, National Association of Pipeline
Safety Representatives

2:30 - 3:45 Health effects from spills - what is really known?
Deb Miller, Impacted resident and business owner from the Enbridge
spill, Ceresco, Mi
Michael & Nina Vought - Affected Citizens from the Chevron Spill,
Salt Lake City, UT
James Rutherford, Health Officer, Calhoun County, MI
Robin Carbaugh, Ombuds, Salt Lake City, UT

3:45 - 4:00 Break

4:00 - 5:00 With All the New Drilling, Gathering Pipelines Are Going In all Over - Is This a Problem?
Emily Krafjack, Community, Municipal & Environmental Liaison, Wyoming
County, PA
John Jacobi, Western Region, Community Assistance & Technical
Services Manager, PHMSA
Randy Knepper, National Vice-Chair, National Association of Pipeline
Safety Representatives

DAY TWO - Friday, Nov. 18

9:00 - 9:30 Day 2 Keynote - Pipeline Safety - A Call to Action
Cynthia Quarterman, Administrator, PHMSA

9:30 - 10:00 Public Awareness Program (video) relating to unsecured oil and gas sites
Vidisha Parasram, Acting Director, Office of Incident Screening and Selection,
U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board

10:00 - 11:00 You Don't Always Have To Be Told What To Do - Voluntary Industry Initiatives to Make Things Safer
Andy Drake, Vice President of Asset Integrity, Spectra Energy Transmission
Tim Felt, President and CEO, Colonial Pipeline
Christina Sames, Vice President of Operations and Engineering,
American Gas Association

11:00 - 11:15 Break

11:15 - 12:15 Aging infrastructure? Where's it a problem and what's the fix?
The Honorable Ed Pawlowski, Mayor, Allentown, Pennsylvania
Linda Daugherty, Deputy Associate Administrator, Policy & Programs, PHMSA
Mark McDonald, President, New England Gas Workers Association
Sue Fleck, Vice President of Engineering Standards & Policy, National Grid

12:15 - 1:30 - LUNCH BREAK

1:30 - 2:30 PIPA Implementation - Anything Happening?
Julie Halliday - Senior Program Manager, PHMSA
Susan Waller, Vice President of Stakeholder Outreach, Spectra Energy
James Davenport, Program Director, National Association of Counties
Rebecca Craven, Program Director, Pipeline Safety Trust

2:30 - 2:45 Closing

NTSB calls San Bruno pipeline explosion 'A failure of the entire system'

WASHINGTON - In a scathing critique, federal investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in an Aug. 30 hearing blamed Pacific Gas & Electric Co. for what one official called "baffling" mistakes that led to a gas pipeline explosion in September 2010 that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The NTSB also said PG&E exploited the lack of monitoring by regulators, who mistakenly placed "blind trust" in the utility.

The report made on Aug. 30 concluded that poor pipeline welds went undetected because of a lack of inspections by the company and inadequate monitoring by state and federal regulators. The utility also lacked a workable emergency response plan that board members said could have helped to prevent the devastation in the city of San Bruno.

"This represents a failure of the entire system - a system of checks and balances that should have prevented this disaster," said Robert L. Sumwalt, an NTSB board member. "The seam weld may have been the technical reason, but this was an organizational accident."

PG&E says its inaccurate records did not lead to San Bruno blast

SAN BRUNO, Calif. - The gas pipeline explosion that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes in San Bruno would have happened even if Pacific Gas and Electric Co. had kept accurate records of the line, the company told state regulators on April 19.

The rupture on the 30-inch transmission line that caused the Sept. 9 explosion took place at an incomplete weld on a pipe seam, metallurgists with the National Transportation Safety Board have concluded. PG&E's records showed that the pipe had no seams, and it never conducted inspections that might have detected a flawed seam weld.

However, the type of weld that ruptured does not have a record of failing, PG&E told the state Public Utilities Commission. As a result, it said, the company still would have picked an inspection technique best suited for finding the problem that PG&E considered the greatest threat to the line - corrosion - and not flawed welds.

"The question becomes whether the correct seam type information ... would have changed PG&E's assessment methodology" and "potentially prevented the Sept. 9, 2010, San Bruno pipeline rupture," the company said. "The short answer to that question is 'no.' "

Federal investigators cite defective welds as likely cause of fatal San Bruno blast

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - A federal report issued on Jan. 21 says that the natural gas pipe that ruptured in San Bruno on Sept. 9, killing eight people and destroying 38 homes, had numerous flawed welds. According to some experts cited, the pipe did not meet even the welding standards in place when it was installed in 1956.

The metallurgical report shed new light on the blast, identifying for the first time a particular seam weld as the site of the rupture. It found that the weld was half as thick as it should have been.

The problem seam weld in San Bruno, the NTSB report notes, developed a crack "consistent with ductile overstress from the root of the weld." A surge eventually ripped apart the line at the seam at a time when pressure ran up to 386 pounds per square inch. The pressure surged because of a malfunction of the pipeline system's power source before the San Bruno explosion.

The report noted that there were several circumferential, or girth, welds, and all of them had similar flaws. One of them also failed in the accident, but the report did not specify the cause of the "overstress" on those welds.