SAN JOSE, California. – The explosion of a gas pipeline in San Bruno, south of San Francisco, has a growing concern about the potential of utility workers who monitor the pipelines of the nation and whose errors are associated with a number of accidents, some of them catastrophic.

The NTSB has said that among the questions the investigation into Sept. 9 explosion is whether workers at a PG & E pipeline monitoring terminal in Milpitas, California, were tired or poorly educated. Only eight days after the explosion, the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration moved to accelerate the adoption of a rule to ensure that workers doing similar jobs at companies across the country are well trained and equipped – especially since many of these workers introduced 12-hour shifts.

Officials with the pipeline office were vague on whether the disaster to adjust their deposit on the gas-line worker accelerate, said only that the provisions are eligible for some time. Nevertheless, some experts say the new federal standards are desperately needed.

Ensure that utility employees are not too tired or otherwise unable to manage the automated data that they see “is definitely important,” said Shamin Sharoki, president of Houston-based Consipio containing gas advises companies on such matters. “Unless you are trained, can be very dangerous. If they do not respond to an emergency situation can cause an explosion. It can lead to leaks. The damage is very great.”

Three days after the explosion San Bruno, the eight slain, the California Public Utilities Commission ordered PG & E to keep all records on the Milpitas terminal, which monitors the activities of the gas transmission line ruptured, and investigators with the NTSB to interview workers there.

A few days later, NTSB Vice Chairman Christopher Hart shows that the agency was also looking for the PG & E automated system depends on monitoring and controlling the flow of gas.

A complex system

Use of this system – called Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition – is widespread, led companies. And because the system data, a detailed view of what happened to the San Bruno pipeline burst, it is no surprise researchers were eager to inspect it. Still, employee problems, the system also have become a significant security risk.

A 2005 NTSB study investigated 13 accidents Pipeline fill with different liquids from 1992 to 2004 shows that “in 10 of these accidents, some aspects of the SCADA system have contributed to the severity of the accident.” In many cases the problems were exacerbated when employees monitoring systems do not quickly recognize and respond to leaks. Among the accidents cited:

l A April 7, 1992, fire in Brenham, Texas, which caused three deaths and 21 injured after a poorly trained employee not to the changing pressure in a tube, in part because the communication system does not display data in a way the employee would be easy to interpret.

l On June 10, 1999, an employee does not realize that a gas pipeline was ruptured and burst into flames in Bellingham, Washington, because the fault system produced inaccurate data. As a result, it took more than an hour on the tube valves. Three people died and eight were wounded.

l On October 27, 2004, after a pipeline that the corrosive and potentially lethal chemical anhydrous ammonia ruptured in Kingman, Can a false alarms generated by an employee monitoring and improperly increased the flow of ammonia in the line. Nobody was wounded or slain, but 204,000 liters of the liquid flowed into a creek, killing more than 25,000 fish, including some endangered species.

From 1990 to 2009, pipeline operator error caused slightly more than 5 percent of all major accidents nationwide, resulting in eight deaths, 150 injuries and $ 16.2 million in property damage, according to data kept by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. During the same period, the operator error caused 11.5 percent of “serious incidents” that a death or an injury requiring hospitalization process.

source:washingtonpost