Letters

Letters to the Editor in Fort Worth Star-Telegram. People paying attention.

Inspecting inside the pipes

Several articles have been written recently regarding underground gas pipelines.

As a retired engineer who designed emergency shutdown systems and operators for gas pipelines, including the 56-inch pipeline from Siberia to Europe, I would like to let local residents know that gas companies do not inspect the interior of their pipes. However, the British Gas Corp. regularly inspects all the gas lines throughout the United Kingdom.

U.S. lines are pigged and scraped to remove condensation and rust on a regular schedule, but operators have no idea how thin the steel pipe has become due to corrosion.

The UK uses a "smart pig" that electronically measures the pipe wall thickness and the position along the pipeline where that thickness occurs.

Why is it that the U.S. gas companies don't swallow their pride and use a tool someone else developed?

Gas pressure can vary from 600 to 900 to 1,500 psi according to the line requirements, and pipes can be designed with automatic pressure control valves and operators to shut down the line when a leak is detected.

Laws should be in force for all gas pipelines within a mile of buildings, roads and railways.

-- Derek Sidwell, Keller



Unconscionable law

Unless oil companies have the technology to quickly address and control a worst-case scenario when drilling offshore (which clearly they do not), they should not be given permits to drill offshore -- period.

It is unconscionable that companies making billions of dollars should have limited liability if or when they destroy the environment and ruin so many lives.

Shame on everyone who has voted to give these monster corporations such limitless power and such limited accountability.

-- Wendy Stoecker, Arlington