07/12/2003

Associated Press

SEATTLE – Mayor Greg Nickels wants Olympic Pipe Line Co. to conduct high-pressure tests and check for any needed repairs on part of its line that runs through the city, but the company says the tests aren't necessary.

In a letter obtained by The Seattle Times, the company said the city lacks the legal authority to carry out Nickels' threat to shut down part of the pipeline unless the hydrostatic tests are performed.

"The conditions Seattle seeks to place on Olympic's operations are practically unnecessary, economically burdensome and legally unenforceable," Olympic president Bobby Talley said in the letter.

Talley's letter was sent in response to a June 26 letter from Nickels demanding the testing and inspection of parts of the line that may need repairs.

Talley asked for a meeting with city officials and state and federal regulators to resolve the matter, but the mayor's office said the city is standing by its demands.

The company's pipeline through Seattle is a spur of the line that exploded in Bellingham in 1999, killing three people. The main pipeline runs from Whatcom County to Portland.

Talley said the Seattle pipeline has been inspected four times since 2000 and is scheduled for a fifth inspection this fall. The four recent tests were conducted using "smart pigs," machines that run through the inside of the pipelines and scan for flaws. Such testing meets or exceeds federal pipeline standards, Talley said.

In Nickels' letter, he said he would order the pipeline shut down effective Aug. 26 unless the company performed a hydrostatic test on its Seattle line – shooting water through the pipeline at extremely high pressures.

In the letter to Olympic, Nickels cited tests conducted on the pipeline last year revealing 131 anomalies in seam welds on the Seattle line. Fourteen of those anomalies were confirmed by other tests, indicating possible weaknesses in the pipe.

Fuel pipelines are regulated by the federal Office of Pipeline Safety, but cities can negotiate franchise agreements with pipeline operators, imposing safety requirements in exchange for allowing the pipe to run through public rights-of-way.

Seattle's franchise with Olympic expired at the end of 2000, and the city was negotiating with the company for a new agreement when Olympic filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March.

Since then, Nickels has asked that Olympic's owners, BP Pipelines North America and Shell Pipelines, agree to give legal backing any new franchise agreement.

The companies refused, prompting the mayor's demand for hydrostatic testing.

Similar hydrostatic tests in Renton and Bellingham have caused weak points in the pipeline to rupture, revealing the need for new pipe. Olympic contends such tests are not warranted in Seattle.

Some pipeline safety activists say Nickels was right to push for the more demanding water testing.

"Hydrostatic testing is by far the preferred method," Bob Rackleff, a county commissioner in Leon County, Fla., told The Times. Rackleff heads the National Pipeline Reform Coalition, an industry watchdog group.

In 1999, Olympic's pipeline ruptured near a Bellingham park, spilling thousands of gallons of gasoline that erupted in a giant fireball that killed two boys and an 18-year-old man.

The Seattle segment delivers 1.3 million gallons a week of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from the company's main Renton terminal to a tank farm on Harbor Island. From there, the fuel is loaded onto tanker trucks and barges.

The 12-inch pipeline was laid in 1965 and is buried 30 inches below the surface. It runs near two elementary schools in south Seattle.