Change Moves Slowly Through Pipeline Industry, But 2 Deadly Blasts Finally Spur Safety Rules

Despite the damage caused by the Durham Woods fire, it took two deadly explosions years later to spark significant change in the pipeline industry.

A gasoline pipeline in Bellingham, Wash., ruptured in 1999, killing three people and contaminating a creek near Puget Sound. The ensuing public outcry, and a second fatal pipe failure in Carlsbad, N.M., in 2000, prompted Congress to enact new safety regulations for liquid pipelines in 2001.

Those rules for pipeline integrity, adopted in December 2003 for gas pipelines, require additional testing and more rigorous monitoring for all pipes that run near populated or environmentally sensitive areas. Pipeline owners must also identify places where pipelines run near housing subdivisions, schools and hospitals, and create safety plans. "This is the most significant raising of safety standards in our history," said Stacey Gerard, associate administrator of the U.S. Department of Transportation's Research and Special Programs Administration, which oversees the nation's 2.3 million miles of pipeline for the Office of Pipeline Safety.

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• Change Moves Slowly Through Pipeline Industry, But 2 Deadly Blasts Finally Spur Safety Rules