seattlep-i.com Special Report: Pipelines: America's Hidden Hazards

Jump to

OUR AFFILIATES

For a generation, a pipeline owned by the Olympic Pipe Line Co. ran the length of Washington mostly unnoticed, carrying fuel from the refineries in the north to an increasingly energy-hungry population.

Few people even knew it was there. That changed on June 10, 1999, when a Bellingham man called 911 to report "there's been an explosion. The whole sky is black."

That day Bellingham gained admission to a tragic, growing group of American cities -- places like Edison, N.J., Lively, Texas, and Mounds View, Minn. -- where pipelines long taken for granted have claimed lives.

Since that day, pipeline safety is no longer an abstraction here. For the grieving families of the two 10-year-old boys and the teenager who died, it is an obscene oxymoron. For shocked neighbors and thousands of others who live along the Olympic line, pipeline safety has become a series of fearful questions:

How does a creek burbling through a park in the middle of town on a sunny summer afternoon turn into a flaming hell? Why was it allowed to happen? Could it happen again?

Some answers lie underground, in the nation's 157,000 miles of aging petroleum pipeline. Others are found in the unkept promise of an obscure federal regulatory agency, the Office of Pipeline Safety.

The Post-Intelligencer's three-day series answers some of the questions that rose from the smoking ruin of Whatcom Falls Park. P-I reporters Scott Sunde, Michael Paulson, Phuong Le and Paul Nyhan, photographers Robin Layton and Dan DeLong and artist Cliff Vancura reveal a loosely regulated industry that, even as it fulfills a vital function, poses a growing threat to the public it serves.

Tighter pipeline safeguards have been slow in coming
The June 10 death of two boys and a teenage fisherman in a fire caused by a ruptured oil pipeline in Bellingham has intensified the anger of longtime critics of the federal government's oversight of pipeline safety. It has also engendered a new set of critics made up of fearful residents and increasingly vocal elected officials from Washington state.

Pipeline safety chief defends work of agency
WASHINGTON -- Times are tough at the Office of Pipeline Safety. The little-known agency is under fire from Congress, the National Transportation Safety Board and residents of communities fearful of accidents like the one in Bellingham that killed three people June 10. But the woman at the helm, Kelley Coyner, says the criticism is largely undeserved.

Money pipelines make comes from what they charge to move oil
Together, pipeline companies generate profits by charging government-regulated fees to move oil and its derivatives from point A to point B. The ventures are bound together by a common mission: to make money as middlemen, while managing maintenance expenses and adjusting to a shifting U.S. population.

Small Olympic backed by big money
The Olympic Pipe Line Co. is a small and quiet enterprise, employing only 75 people, but it's backed by some of the most powerful players in the oil business.

Sprawl brings people closer to pipelines, increasing the risks
On the Olympic Pipe Line Co.'s route from Cherry Point, Wash., to Portland, a pipeline cuts under parking lots, brushes by parks and schools and passes through yards in subdivisions and densely packed urban neighborhoods. The line, which carries gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, also crosses bodies of water 132 times -- from small creeks to the Columbia River. It crosses roads from country lanes to Interstate 5.

Interactive map of Olympic's pipeline from its origin at Cherry Point south to Federal Way

43 spills for Olympic since pipeline opened
Until the June 10 accident in Bellingham, none of Olympic's accidents resulted in fatalities. Several, however, have involved spills in the thousands of gallons. In all, the company has spilled almost 821,000 gallons since 1965. The federal Office of Pipeline Safety estimates that spills by Olympic since 1985 have caused nearly $2 million in property damage.

Beach town forced to scrape away oil leak -- and a chunk of its past
AVILA BEACH, Calif. -- Gone from Avila Beach this summer are the college kids in bikinis and families with Frisbees who used to flock by the thousands to the quaint beach town. Cranes and dump trucks now dominate the beach, methodically turning storefronts and homes into rubble to make way for a project to clean up a massive oil spill beneath the town that had long gone undetected.

With aging lines and lax regulation, potential for accidents is high
The aging pipeline system mixes the dangers of corrosion and fatigue with lax overview by federal regulators. The result is a fragile system where accidents are common. Failure to properly maintain pipelines has taken lives and done extensive environmental damage.