BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) -
As you head to bed, many of you will be sleeping on top of a massive string of pipelines. Two months ago, a deadly pipeline explosion in California shed fresh light on the real dangers lurking just below our homes.
Since that time, the 9 News I-Team has been digging through maps and records to pinpoint the risk here in Louisiana. Louisiana leads the country in property damage from pipelines.
There are over 90,000 miles of pipelines that run through Louisiana, and it is probably no surprise with all of the oil produced, and processed in the state. Even so, the San Bruno explosion prompted months of investigation.
San Bruno was a scene that mirrored any battle in war. Fire ravaged the California neighborhood in September roaring on for days. It killed four people and injured dozens more.
"The reality is because you have so many incidents, it's hard to crunch the numbers," said Carl Weimer with the Pipeline Safety Trust.
The Pipeline Safety Trust is a nonprofit pipeline watchdog out of Bellingham, Washington, created after three kids were killed in a 1999 Washington explosion.
"Louisiana looks like of all the major pipeline states has more incidents per mile of pipeline than most other states," Weimer said.
Department of Transportation records show there have been 226 significant incidents in the state since the year 2000. There have been four fatalities, 18 injuries and around $1,134,371,904 in property damage. The next highest property damage state is Texas at $364,906,600 nearly one third of Louisiana's property damage.
Brent Campbell is the director of Louisiana's Pipeline Safety Division, part of the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources.
"I think it's something that they should be concerned about, but they should not be running scared," Campbell said.
He and Carl Weimer both agree that a lot of the accidents and problems with Louisiana's pipeline system are caused by hurricanes, most notably the 2005 season with Katrina and Rita.
According to Campbell, pipelines in the state are generally inspected once a year. Campbell said high consequence areas, pipelines where people live, must be inspected more thoroughly at least every three years.
"I was definitely a little surprised. It's just something I never knew about my neighborhood," said Wayne Shelton who lives in Tara, one of those high consequence areas. DNR records show federally regulated pipelines run through Tara.
"People want to know everything about their neighborhood from their neighbor to what's under their house. It could be nice to know all that," Shelton said.
While high consequence areas are inspected thoroughly every three years, some areas do not get the same attention. An example is in December 2007 in Delhi, Louisiana, when a federally regulated pipeline exploded just south of the interstate. Flames went under the road, killing an Alabama man. Records show it cost over $3 million in property damage and was caused by a corroded pipeline.
"When we looked into that we found out that the federal regulations don't require that pipeline and that place to be inspected because it's not considered a high consequence area, although it was a pretty big high consequence area for the folks that were just driving down the road that day," Weimer said.
Corroded pipelines bring up the question of age. We searched thousands of records as part of our investigation and found some pipelines dating back to the 1920s. Campbell says old does not always mean bad.
"I think we do a real good job, especially for the fact that we try to get out to every operator each year to inspect their pipeline facilities. I think we go above and beyond what's called for in the regulations," Campbell said.
To view pipeline maps in your area, visit the National Pipeline Mapping System by clicking here.
For more on the Pipeline Safety Trust, click here.
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