Pipes carry dangerous products

Harmful substances travel by miles of pipe, but accidents have been rare.

By BEN MONTGOMERY, Times Staff Writer
Published November 18, 2007

Hillsborough County Fire Rescue crews apply water canons (right) to the ammonia leaking from at pipe at US Highway 301 bridge over the Alafia River in Riverview.
	[Skip O'Rourke | Times]

RIVERVIEW - In April of 1978, environmentalists gathered near a pipeline being built to pump poisonous ammonia from Port Sutton to phosphate operations in Polk County.

One man hoisted a .30-caliber rifle, aimed at the pipe and squeezed the trigger.

"Holy smokes ... look at that," said James Joyce, president of the pipeline company, according to a newspaper report. "That's amazing. Holy mackerel."

The shooting was not a crime, but a demonstration aimed at persuading government regulators that the pipe would be safe if it crossed above the Alafia River rather than under it. The bullet pierced a protective sleeve but not the pipe itself.

A hunter with a rifle was the concern of the day.

Nearly 30 years later, it wasn't a hunter that penetrated the pipeline and released a toxic cloud of ammonia. It was a suburban 16-year-old with a drill.

When the Tampa Pipeline Corp. laid that pipe three decades ago, Riverview was mostly rural farmland, citrus groves, swamps.

In the three decades since, eastern Hillsborough has sprouted suburbs and exurbs. U.S. 301, which was closed for nearly two days during the emergency evacuation, now winds through strip-mall canyons and neighborhoods, not pastures.

What hasn't changed is the pipeline.

In Hillsborough County, population 1.16-million, 335 miles of buried pipelines carry jet fuel, diesel fuel, natural gas and ammonia. More than 70 miles of pipe run beneath Pinellas; 58 beneath Pasco; 19 beneath Hernando. Hillsborough and Polk counties contain the most miles of hazardous material pipelines in the state.

All those people.

All those dangerous pipes.

Should we be scared?

So far this year there have been no fatalities in the United States due to hazardous materials pipeline accidents, according to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the federal body which regulates pipelines.

Last year? Zero.

In 2004, two people died in pipeline accidents. That same year, according to the National Safety Council, lightning killed 46 people, hornets and bees killed 52, and 44,993 died in traffic accidents.

"People and pipelines can live harmoniously," said Damon Hill, a spokesman for the U.S. Transportation Department's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. "The population is increasing and communities are growing, and even with that, the numbers of deaths and accidents are going down."

Pipeline accidents have dropped from 245 in 1994 to 91 so far this year.

"All of our rules and regulations have tightened up in the past few years," said Glenn Howell, who manages the breached pipeline for Tampa Pipeline Corp. "We have more sophisticated equipment. We have monitors that we didn't have years ago."

But even in 1978, the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission required more safeguards on the ammonia line than were required by federal regulations.

"We required additional safety standards, which largely meant more frequent valves in the system," said Roger Stewart, who was director of the EPC when the pipe was being built.

Those standards don't ease residents' worries, though.

"It represents a real substantial hazard," said Rex Garrison, president of the Alafia River Ridge Civic Association. "I don't think there's much we can do about it, because it was there first. I would think that security would be a concern. ... If somebody can just take a power drill or a wireless screwdriver and drill into it, my God, it was too accessible."

Since 1978, people have protested the pipeline. Riverview residents even held a sit-down to halt its construction.

And since 1978, pipeline managers have asked residents to consider the relative safety of the alternative: trucking ammonia.

"Just for that one plant that that pipeline services, you'd have 90 to 100 trucks every day between Port Sutton and County Line Road," Howell said. "Pipelines are still the safest means of transporting any products: gas, diesel fuel, crude oil. It's still the safest means so far."

Times staff writers Catherine Shoichet and Rebecca Catalanello contributed to this report. Ben Montgomery can be reached at bmontgomery@sptimes.com or (813) 661-2443.

[Last modified November 17, 2007, 22:24:33]