On November 8, APGA was notified by the American Gas Association (AGA) about a pipeline incident in the Palouse region of Washington state that would potentially require a mutual aid response.
Avista, an investor-owned utility and member of AGA, formally requested mutual aid on November 9, after the Williams Northwest Pipeline, which they contract with, was unintentionally struck by a landowner trying to install a drainage pipe. The damage to the pipeline resulted in the disruption of gas service to nearly 37,000 Avista customers – the largest natural gas outage in their company’s history.
APGA reached out to the City of Ellensburg, WA to update them on the incident and to see if they would be interested in helping with the mutual aid response. Ellensburg agreed to help almost immediately and spent that morning rearranging on-call assignments, confirming coverage for their own utility and community, and committing all available crew to assist Avista. City staff became part of a Regional Mutual Aid Team and began meeting regularly over Microsoft Teams with Avista, AGA, APGA, and the other responding utility companies.
On November 10, two employees from the City of Ellensburg Gas Division departed at 7:00 AM to assist with the Avista gas service restoration efforts. They drove approximately 3.5 hours to the muster point and were the first utility to arrive. Over the next three days, the two crew members worked 16-hour days, averaging six relights an hour. In total, they completed 251 relights. The Pullman area to which they were assigned ended up being one of the first zones brought back on to the system. By November 14, nearly 100% of Avista’s customers had gas restored to their homes and businesses.
The City of Ellensburg is enrolled in the National Mutual Aid Program, which allows both APGA members and AGA members to sign the National Mutual Aid Agreement. Once enrolled, any member can then request and respond to aid from any of the other signatories, regardless of whether they are an investor-owned or publicly-owned utility. By signing the agreement in advance, Avista was able to request aid as soon as they had assessed the situation and determined what resources they would need. In return, Ellensburg was able to respond promptly and offer the resources they had available at the time.
This event highlighted the value of mutual aid, and the eagerness of the gas industry to help one another in times of need. In total, over 300 mutual aid volunteers from eight natural gas utility companies were deployed to aid Avista in restoring service to their customers. The success of this mutual aid event should encourage everyone to have a plan in place in case of an emergency. APGA would like to thank the City of Ellensburg for going above and beyond to support a fellow utility. We know that others would do the same for them should they ever need it.
For questions on this article, please contact Simon Cook of APGA staff by phone at 202-464-2742 or by email at scook@apga.org.