Last Appomattox pipeline pumping at full pressure
Click here for an interactive map of pipeline incidents on the Williams/Transco line
The last of three natural gas pipelines that run through Appomattox County is being returned to full service today — 237 days after one line exploded, injuring five people, leveling two homes and damaging about 100 other houses.
Williams Gas Co. received federal approval Wednesday to return its C line to an operating pressure of 800 pounds per square inch, said company spokesman Chris Stockton. The line, which runs adjacent to the one that ruptured on Sept. 14, has been operating at 640 psi since the explosion.
The natural gas that one of the pipes released blew into a fireball that scorched an area 1,125 feet in diameter, according to preliminary findings in the federal investigation.
The three pipelines run side by side through Appomattox County carrying natural gas from the Gulf of Mexico to New York.
The approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration came after Williams inspected some 695 feet of pipeline at 16 locations throughout the month of April along pipe in Appomattox, Stockton said.
“These locations were identified by studying internal inspection data collected last summer,” he said. “These locations were excavated, inspected and repaired over a three-week period.”
Eleven sections of pipe were cut out and replaced and two sections were re-coated with a tar enamel to prevent corrosion, Stockton said. The amount of pipe that was replaced totaled 825 feet, including some sections that were not in need of repair but were removed to tie in the places that did need to be replaced in the construction.
Stockton noted that only two repairs were required under the federal code; the others were done “on our part to provide an additional margin of safety.”
Pressure on the line was gradually increased Thursday to reach full pressure today. The B line, the one that exploded, was repaired and brought back to full pressure on Dec. 26. The other line, the A line, was fully restored on Nov. 10.
About 2,500 feet of the B line was replaced following the explosion.
The investigation into the failure revealed that the more-than-50-year-old pipe was corroding from the outside, and that thinning wasn’t fully revealed by the tools used to examine the pipes.
The natural gas pipelines that run through Appomattox are part of the Transco line, which extends from the Gulf of Mexico to New York, including 858 miles in Virginia.
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