Northern Utilities, under pressure of an upcoming full management audit in the wake of a series of gas leaks, is looking at ways to improve its pipeline mapping and location services, according to a report from the Maine Public Utilities Commission.
A rash of gas leaks in October have plagued the area, including two on the same street in Westbrook and one that led to a house explosion in South Portland. The commission ordered a full management audit and indicated in its Oct. 26 report a concern about inaccurate and non-existent maps for gas pipelines.
The commission began an investigation into Northern Utilities last month following a failure to reach a resolution on three probable federal gas safety violations issued – the first such violations issued by the commission since 2000.
While the management audit of Northern Utilities moves forward, the commission is emphasizing to excavators that they follow Dig Safe rules and use caution. Two of the last three recent gas leaks occurred when excavators hit unmapped natural gas pipelines on Speirs Street in Westbrook. Dig Safe is a nonprofit communication network that assists contractors in locating utilities before excavation.
The commission staff report states that “for several decades Northern had a practice of cutting off and capping inactive services various distances from the main and disposing of the service cards. This has left live ‘stubs’ in public right of ways and on private property for which Northern has no records.”
Commission staff indicated in its report that they are pleased with Northern Utilities’ proposals to remedy some of the commission’s concerns, which include pipeline mapping, notice to homeowners of live pipelines on their property and the practice of paving over valve boxes, which connect to the gas lines and can be used to turn off the gas flow. The utility company has proposed to bring its mapping service in-house – it is currently contracted to On Target Locating, based in Gardiner – and to research new technology to locate underground pipes that don’t have records.
Northern Utilities contends that geospatial positioning systems and radar devices could assist the company in locating the pipelines. It has proposed that by bringing its locating services in-house, it could cut the locating error rate from 40 percent to 10 percent. Northern Utilities looked into radar devices five years ago, but the technology was deemed insufficient at the time. It is ready to research new technologies.
The two leaks on Speirs Street occurred when excavators hit unmapped stubs while digging to reach water lines for renovations at the old St. Mary’s School. The stubs were pipelines that had been cut off with the removal of old buildings.
“In my opinion, all the old guys who really know where those (pipelines) are have retired,” said Linda Woodbury, 62, who lives in the apartment building she owns on Speirs Street, and was at home the first time the street was evacuated on Oct. 18. “I think they should have better records.”
James Phelps of Phelps Excavating hit the second stub on Oct. 23 and said the experience was “nerve wracking,” knowing that any moment something could ignite or a house could explode, as one had in South Portland just three weeks prior.
During the second evacuation, which occurred at around 8:30 in the morning, a man was arrested for allegedly refusing to evacuate the area. Woodbury said one of her tenants – a mother with an infant – was told she couldn’t start her car and leave, instead having to take her child in stroller away from the pungent smell of gas to Riverbank Park, where she called her husband at work to pick her up.
From the start of 2003 through June of this year, three of these so-called stubs have been hit by excavators. With the two incidents on Speirs Street in October added in, there have been five unmapped stubs hit by excavators.
“It’s a cause of concern to the commission,” said Fred Bever, spokesman for the commission.
According to an Oct. 29 Northern Utilities letter to the Public Utilities Commission in response to the mapping concerns of the commission staff, more than 66,500 Dig Safe tickets for utility location had been processed in the past four years, with only 52 damage incidents related to mapping record errors. Over 99 percent of all excavations were completed without incident.
While recent incidents in Westbrook, South Portland and Cape Elizabeth have put Northern Utilities in the spotlight, the events are not indicative of a rise in gas leaks, and, in fact, gas leaks are declining. So far in 2007, there have been about 80 Northern Utilities gas leaks in Maine. In 2006 there were 138, and in 2005 there were 163, according to federal data compiled by Bever.
Just this past Tuesday, a contractor hit a private line behind the Little Dolphin School on County Road. Capt. Chuck Jarrett of the Westbrook Fire Department said the line, which he believed to be unmarked, despite the fact that the contractor went through Dig Safe before breaking ground, was another example of misplaced or unknown gas lines that is not unique to Northern Utilities. The utilities commission sent an investigator to the scene Tuesday afternoon.
“Should the commission identify something that could be a larger problem, they would get the staff to look at it,” Bever said. He said public safety is of the utmost priority.
According to Christopher Castaneda, a history professor at Sacramento State in California with a background in the history of natural gas pipeline, “a lot of pipe gets abandoned.”
Castaneda said Maine didn’t have much for natural gas until after World War II, but instead relied on coal gas, created from heating coal and capturing the gas it releases. Westbrook was using coal gas for lighting before the 1880s, when electric lights came into use.
Portland Gas and Light Co. – which would form Northern Utilities in its merger with Lewiston Gas Light Co. in 1966 – was one of the first gas distribution companies in the nation, incorporated in 1849. By 1910, the company had laid 48 miles of gas mains in Portland, but all of the company’s records from 1849 to 1866 had been lost in the 1866 fire that destroyed the city.
By 1912 at the latest, advertisements were appearing for the Westbrook Gas Co. in the local Westbrook Board of Trade publication, The Enterprise. Westbrook Gas Co. was purchasing gas through the Portland company, as was a South Portland company that received its supply via the first submarine gas line across the habor.
In 1930, the Portland, South Portland and Westbrook companies merged, and there were 168 miles of pipes distributing gas. By 1915, the Maine Public Utilities Commission was born, but the federal Natural Gas Act wasn’t passed until 1938, which placed government control over pipeline construction and abandonment, Castaneda said any pipes laid before that year were essentially unregulated.
At least some coal gas pipelines in the country would eventually be used to distribute natural gas distribution, according to Castaneda. With such old lines there can be problems with mapping. Northern Utilities acknowledges that its system to map pipelines includes the use of trees and buildings as markers that can be lost over time.
The incomplete investigation into the Oct. 1 explosion of a house on D Street in South Portland points to a 4-foot discrepancy between where the pipe is located and what Northern Utilities’ records show. That accident also occurred when an excavator hit the pipeline. The commission issued to Northern Utilities a notice of probable violation of Dig Safe regulations – a less severe violation than the three previous probable federal gas safety regulations – for reckless or negligent marking of gas pipelines.
Bever said, generally speaking, gas leaks that occur with Dig Safe violations are the fault of the excavator 55 percent of the time, and the fault of the utility operator 45 percent of the time.
Northern Utilities suggested, according to the commission staff report, that the excavator’s attempts to stop the leak with a rag may have contributed to the gas seeping into the house and thus the explosion. Broken pipelines should be left to spew their gas into the air, according to Northern Utilities’ safety precautions.
Bever said the commission has not formed an opinion on whether there is a trend indicative of a systemic problem with Northern Utilities management, pending the management audit. The audit ordered last month will take some time to complete.
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