Gas pipeline right of ways

[HedwigTramp]

As a retired gas “Pipeliner”, I feel qualified to respond to this thread. I was primarily involved with high pressure natural gas transmission pipelines, so I will limit my response to those. I will let someone with more knowledge that I comment on the distribution pipelines.

I tell all my relatives and friends not to live within at least 1000 ft of a gas transmission line. These are 24” to 42” in diameter under pressures of 700 to 1500 lbs (gas in your home is about 4 lbs). A 25-mile section of 42-inch transmission line operating at about 1,000 pounds of pressure contains about 100 million cubic feet of gas -- enough to power a kitchen range for more than 1,000 years.
The recent Mont Belvieuexplosion and fire is an example of what could be expected. Although not a pipeline rupture, the size of the fire is similar.

Another fact that most people don’t realize is that natural gas in high pressure transmission lines is NOT odorized. It has no smell. The rotten egg smell of gas in your home is Mercaptan…it is added by the distribution companies prior to entering their pipelines.

Most of the major transmission lines around here were placed in service from the 1940’s thru the 1070’s. The lines were strategically placed far away from centers of population. But Houston has grown and spread out geographically, encroaching on the once remote pipelines. There are now many high-pressure lines that are in the middle of popular “burbs” in the Houston area.

Although the pipelines are meticulously maintained and sections of the pipe are replaced every year, incidents DO frequently occur….and when they do it is devastating. Everything within about 500 feet is totally destroyed and scorched. Isolating the pipeline rupture by closing the up-stream and downstream valves will still result in several hours of fire until the gas can burn itself out.
I have seen ruptures throw a caterpillar D5 bulldozer hundreds of feet after accidentally striking the pipeline (A D5 weighs about 13 tons). I have seen hundreds of feet of ½” pipe that was buried 10 feet underground thrown from the ground and leave a 12 foot deep crater.

All pipelines should be marked with signs/poles describing the contents and the owner of the pipline. A little Googling should provide you with detailed information about the pipeline.