From August 25 to 26, the Technical Pipeline Safety Standards Committee (TPSSC) met in Washington, D.C., to hear updates on a number of pipeline safety issues of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). The TPSSC is a congressionally-mandated peer review committee composed of industry, government and public pipeline safety experts that advises whether the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) rules are reasonable, practicable, technically feasible and cost-effective. Rich Worsinger of Rocky Mount, N.C., represents public natural gas on this committee. There were no committee votes as no proposed or final regulations were at a stage to be considered.
PHMSA provided an update on the nine current rulemakings. Most involved transmission or hazardous liquid pipelines. The one rule of most interest to APGA, which is to extend the requirement to install excess flow valves on certain new and renewed multi-family residential and small commercial service lines, is in the proposed rule stage. Rich Worsinger expressed APGA’s concern that the proposed rule would require operators to allow firemen and other non-utility first responders to close curb valves on customer service lines. Rich pointed out that from the surface, curb valves look similar to valves on mains, so non-utility personnel could inadvertently close the wrong valve and make the incident worse. APGA will be submitting comments by the September 14 deadline.
The committee also discussed the new API RP 1173 on Pipeline Safety Management System (PSMS). Rich reiterated APGA’s support for safety management, citing that APGA has awarded its Safety Management Excellence Award for over 30 years. He cautioned, however, that managing safety in a municipal natural gas system did not require the degree of formality and complexity that would be required at a large interstate pipeline system.
For questions on this article, please contact John Erickson of APGA staff by phone at 202-464-2742 or by email at
jerickson@apga.org.