PT (Pipeline Topic) >> Renton Reports 15 Flaws in Pipeline Date (Wash.)

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Renton reports 15 flaws in pipeline data

The Associated Press 2/24/00 9:32 AM

RENTON, Wash. (AP) -- The city has identified 15 defects in a local stretch of petroleum pipeline, but the pipeline operator said the flaws should not raise alarm.

Several flaws, including a thinning of metal pipes, are located over the city's drinking water supply, and one flaw is located within 300 feet of an elementary school.

That has prompted the mayor and Renton City Council to ask that the pipeline be emptied and pressure tested with water.

Olympic Pipe Line spokeswoman Maggie Brown said the Renton flaws, identified in internal tests in 1996 and 1997, are not serious and the data was not correctly interpreted.

"When we presented the data to them, we thought it was fairly accessible to a layman," she said. "We don't think we were successful in that."

But Gregg Zimmerman, Renton's administrator of planning, building and public works, said the city had interpreted the data correctly and is right to be alarmed about the flaws.

"We are one of the cities that -- despite their comment that implies we're too dense to figure out their data -- we've figured it out and mapped it," he said.

Renton and Bellevue both asked for details on their portions of the pipeline after the June 10 spill of some 229,000 gallons of gasoline from the line in Bellingham. Two 10-year-old boys and an 18-year-old man were killed in a resulting explosion and fireball that raced through a city park.

Bellevue hired an engineer to help it interpret data received in January that revealed 29 flaws in the twin petroleum lines that run beneath the city. Officials plan to release a map showing flaw sites when the engineer's work is complete.

Renton Mayor Jesse Tanner and City Council President Randy Corman have asked state and federal legislators to help make water-pressure tests of Olympic's pipeline mandatory.

"Nobody knows what kind of pressures that pipeline can sustain in the condition it's in," Zimmerman said.

Olympic has no plans to conduct water tests, Brown said. She has said the tests will not provide the kind of data most important to ensuring pipeline safety.

Other cities have asked for more information about their own stretches of the pipeline, which runs the length of Western Washington, and Olympic plans to offer workshops to go over data and help them understand test results.

The company has scheduled all-day workshops for March 14 in Olympia, March 15 in Lynnwood and March 16 at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Brown said.

"The workshop really will prepare them so this data makes sense to them, so they understand it and aren't alarmed by it," she said.

Zimmerman said he will send a Renton water-utility staff member to a workshop, but he does not expect to learn anything new or to become less alarmed by the flaws.

An investigation continues into the Bellingham explosion, conducted by the federal Office of Pipeline Safety and the National Transportation Safety Board.

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-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), February 24, 2000

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Addendum: Copyright 2000 Associated Press. All rights reserved

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), February 24, 2000.


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