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First Posted: 8/19/2010
STEVE MOCARSKY
smocarsky@www.timesleader.com
HAZLE TWP. – More than 300 emergency responders, excavators and local officials from five counties attended a pipeline safety seminar Wednesday to learn the dos and don’ts associated with underground utility pipelines.
The free program, which included dinner, was hosted at Genetti Best Western by Paradigm Liaison services on behalf of more than 30 gas and oil pipeline companies.
Lead presenter Sam Jerideau, a National Incident Management System and Incident Command System certified instructor and a retired police chief and police academy director, said the pipeline companies put on the programs across the nation so excavators and emergency personnel have the knowledge they need to stay safe.
Aided by a computerized presentation, Jerideau went over the various types of pipelines and how their general locations can be identified. Rights of way for larger natural gas and electric transmission pipelines are generally identified by colored markers, but smaller gathering and distribution pipelines are not.
That’s why it’s important for anyone digging with power equipment or hammering metal or wooden stakes into the ground – even homeowners in their own yards – to call the Pennsylvania One Call System three days in advance to check for underground utilities.
If there are, One Call will have the utility company come out to mark the location of the line.
Jerideau showed video of home fires and explosions caused by gas lines ruptured by a contractor or homeowner who did not call the One Call system.
One elderly man hammered a steel stake into the ground in his yard for retaining wall work and punctured a gas line. The gas eventually migrated underground to his home and to a neighbor’s home and both exploded, Jerideau said.
The number to dial to reach One Call is 811. The call is free for homeowners and the cost to contractors is $100 per year.
Mark C. Santayana, a representative for the Pennsylvania One Call System, said drillers working in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale were coming from other states with different One Call requirements, so they had a learning curve.
“When they initially came, there were a lot of issues with Marcellus Shale folks not knowing the locations they were digging, so I spent personal time with most of them on how to do One Calls and when to do them and they all have come up to speed,” Santayana said.
Presenters also gave tips for emergency responders, such as donning breathing apparatus immediately upon reaching a pipeline emergency site, because wind can blow heavy petroleum fumes a distance from the incident site.
One official asked how long pipeline pipe lasts before needing replacement.
Kevin E. Docherty, of Buckeye Partners pipeline company, held up a 60-year-old section of pipe with a puncture caused by a contractor that audience members guessed to be only 20 or 30 years old. He said the pipe can last forever if treated properly with anti-corrosives and left undisturbed.
Still, the company