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Thousands of Gas Leaks Discovered Under Streets of Washington DC
First time accepted submitter gallifreyan99 writes "Researchers from Duke revealed today that they had discovered nearly 5,900 gas leaks under the streets of Washington DC, including 12 that posed a serious risk of explosion. And it's not just Washington: a gas industry whistleblower who is part of the team showed this was happening in cities all over America."
take care of the massive rat problem at 1st & Capitol NE?
You thought you weren't going to die? Ha!
Good to know that private enterprise is taking such good care of their infrastructure - so much better than anything the government might operate *snort*.
I am sure they will ask for a rate increase to perform the maintenance that they should have been doing all along - can't take that kind of money from the shareholders (owners.)
Keep the profits private and the losses public - that's the ticket.
This is known tech, used extensively in many countries, yet they still can't manage to maintain a decent system quality.
http://www.activistpost.com/2010/08/10-signs-us-is-becoming-third-world.html
If anyone was able to make it to the end of the movie, there's a scene where he drops the match down the shaft and the whole ship blows up.
What did they expect?
But the biggest danger is of poisoning the water table and water supply.
This happens all over the place, including serious enough leaks that can cause explosions. Occasionally you hear about a building/house/etc blowing up because gas has leaked in from a line out front, or was run under a building, or something else. The only solution is checking, that and running new pipe. In my area back about 15 years ago Union Gas replaced all of the old turn of the century cast iron pipe with plastic. There was no shortage of the old stuff cracking and having developed leaks over the last 100 years. And of course, they checked every house along the way to the meter and if need be they dug up your front yard and replaced the pipe.
I'm actually not sure why the whistleblower thing is "needed" being that anyone who went to highschool(at least in Canada), knows that this is an issue. And yet, we have NG all over the place, or propane if you're too far off the line, or oil. And of course there's still plenty of people who don't have any of those, and are pure electric or wood.
Om, nomnomnom...
. . . .for wanting several thousand lit matches in JUST the right spots, all around DC ???
Of course, one DOES have to worry about the massive wind from all the politicians, blowing them out, which may explain why DC is still on the map. . . .
it must have cost a fortune to test Rio and Mexico City.
Check for ninjas in the basement.
"The latest teenage prank is to throw lighted matches and cigarettes down manholes in Washington, DC."
"Gas company announces it needs to raise rates to fix leaks."
...A few months go by of more efficient gas lines - meaning less wasted into the atmosphere.
"Gas company CEO gets bonus for increased profits. Writes book on how to be a great CEO."
He then appears on CNBC and is introduced as Blow Hard Jack and pontificates on how a business should be run. CNBC talking heads fawn all over him and blame Democrats for the poor business climate.
DC residents stuck with higher rates while CEO and shareholders rake it in. But hey, they worked HARD for it - they had to READ a news headline in the paper about their operational stupidity. The thought of proactively looking for leaks never crossed their mind.
Corporate America manages to destroy critical infrastructure wholesale all bu itself...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
And 545 of them are in the three branches of government.
Standard operating procedure in the U.S. is to shoot the messenger and ignore the problem.
So this is why there is such a big campaign against smoking in US!
So is there any data on the quantity of methane, etc. produced by this? How does it compare with cow farts, for instance?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I live in a fairly small city that experienced two gas leaks in as many days (and I believe it was three within the span of a week) due to work being done to the lines by the gas company. The two gas leaks were significant enough to evacuate nearby residents and shut down power to the neighborhood.
If these businesses aren't willing to hire and train competent work crews, maybe it's best that things are left alone.
That's hot air, the place is full of it
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
no wonder our elected officials all act like brainless tools...
they are high on fumes.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
Back when I lived in DC (late 1990s) there were regular reports of exploding manholes ... with the best guess of the cause being a combination of gas leaks and electrical shorts. Of couse, in the report on the problem blamed PEPCO (electrical) not Washington Gas.
About 10 years ago, they had a solution -- install manholes with vent holes in them, so the gas pressure can't build up as easily. Of course, you instead get extra water underground, which can lead to faster corrosion of pipes.
Last year, when the methane levels were first reported, the estimate was 38 exploding manholes per year ... so I'm guessing the vented covers have been less than successful.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Are they sure it's just not HOT AIR?
Forget fiction. I would like to know how dangerous the Mythbusters think the situation is.
Their tests on trying to create a manhole explosion was really interesting. They found they needed the right mix of air and methane, and a cluttered sewer pipe caused the fire to spread more effectively than a clear pipe.
For example, the 50% concentration mentioned in TFA is way too concentrated to produce a big boom.
John
Do you hear that? That's the sound of the US crumbling under unregulated greed and power.
Brave Sir Robin ran away. ("No!") Bravely ran away away. ("I didn't!")
Prosecute the whistleblowers for leaking the leaks!
Think of the^W^W^W Imagine what a terrorist could do with this information!
You're going to sprain something.
Well, it's a good thing it's not a widespread problem
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
This is government lies. They need to lay the groundwork for using 'gas leak' to explain all these vampire/zombie/werewolf/alien incidents.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Perhaps we can have some posts about how the US has the most powerful military in the world, outspending nearly the rest of the world combined.
Infrastructure in crumbles and the roads are far worse then China but yeah, keep spending on weapons you dont need.
Call the NSA, CIA, FBI and all those who are against leaks.
look no further than this http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2106146,00.html
I always knew WDC was full of gas.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Simple reason... http://www.amazon.com/Haribo-Gummy-Candy-Sugarless-5-Pound/dp/B000EVQWKC (check the reviews)
There isn't anything ere to be worried about folks.
There are thousands and thousands of miles of 60 plus year old cast iron and steel pipe. These pipes expand and contract over time and wiggle themselves loose. Typically these leaks are very small and are no danger to the public, which is why they are allowed to persist. Every natural gas utility in the United States is required to have a leak management program which is monitored by the state they reside in and the Department of Transportation. Most natural gas utilities have capital infrastructure projects in place to replace these old pipes with new plastic pipe, which is more flexible and creates a very strong joint. The creation of these programs is directly related to the regulatory agencies mandating a reduction in leaks each year.
If you do ever smell natural gas (which actually doesn't smell, mercaptain is added for the fart smell) please call your utility and report it.
I am an engineer at a natural gas utility and it is my job manage the installation of plastic pipe and deal with these leaks.
This must be a conspiracy to get us to adopt wind and solar and drop coal and natural gas.
Or maybe it's the home heating oil alliance.
Maybe we should go back to nuclear power.
5800 methane detections while driving around in a car...only got out for further analysis 19 times. Of that, how many of the 5800 were farts?
The good news is that this may get the Government to notice the enormous deferred-maintenance problem in the USA.
The bad news is that they'll only fix the stuff inside the Beltway and pay for it by shorting repairs somewhere else.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
That's Ok! I don't see any need for job-killing regulations for the energy industry in Washington! If anything they need LESS regulation, or someone will outsource all those gas jobs to China! Congress doesn't want to kill jobs do they?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It is a greenhouse gas 30x-70x that of CO2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=116532&org=NSF&from=news
At first glance I read this as "Thousands of Geeks Discovered Under Streets of Washington DC"
Terrorists don't know how to light matches.
Clearly, the answer is to raise taxes to pay for it. The rich aren't paying their fair share. The bad news is, the rich in D.C. all work for the government-- so good luck with that.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Yes, they do. A typical innovation is to move head office to a foreign country so if they get in too much legal trouble in one place, they can continue to operate elsewhere.
If at all possible, the first recourse in the private sector is to innovate your way out of bearing the downside. Contrary to your ideological end cap, this happens a great deal more often than just the companies who've gained some form of monopoly power. It would be tedious just to list the corporate inventiveness on this front (some of which is criminal, not that this makes much difference when prosecutors are left holding an empty cage.)
Here's one they actually caught. Enron convict Jeffrey Skilling has reached a deal to be released early from prison
He must have given a lot of blow jobs during his years in the can to collect enough cigarettes to make whole his many victims, justifying his early release for good behaviour.
Actually solving the problem is the private-sector recourse of last resort, unless it leads to a future business model where there's a substantial likelihood of being able to innovate your way out of bearing the downside. Now there's an incentive to get the saliva flowing in the profit motive.
The government isn't better or worse, just different. The worst outcomes occurs as a collaboration between the government and the private sector. Regulatory capture is a transaction between hookers and johns to bugger the public purse.
Here's the concluding paragraphs of Michael I. Norton taking the piss out of Hayekian overreach in his Edge.org essay Markets Are Bad; Markets Are Good:
Mainly they behave well when something firmly bars the gate to behaving badly. Greenspan believed that Wall Street corporations could successfully police each other, if the government stayed out of the way.
Greenspan admits 'mistake' that helped crisis
Oops. By the downside-mitigating innovations of Goldman Sachs, who picked up the cheque for that mess? "Too big to fail" was cleverly crafted.
Unfortunately, markets are not some automatic panacea for all that ails the human condition. They are just one little piece of the puzzle that sometimes weave extraordinary magic. America's founding fathers weren't a market. They were just a bunch of extremely astute men well aware of how easily it all goes wrong, who sat down and tried to do the right thing, acting on moral sentiments rather than market incentives. What tangle of corporate i
Thousands of Basement Dweller Leaks Discovered Under Washington DC. Mothers asked to provide Beano alongside Hot Pockets.
This is not news. Natural gas lines leak--they always have. It has nothing to do with whether the utility is public or private. It has nothing to do with US politics. Natural gas utilities all over the world operate their systems at low pressure to minimize the leakage and fix significant problems when they're detected. It sounds like Duke students discovered something that civil engineers have known for 100 years.
It's not about the danger of gas explosions ; larger gas leaks that pose safety concerns are usually addressed if they are detected. It's about the thousands of small leaks, that the gas industry often ignores as being too small to pose any risk. In this the second link is very informative: not only are these small leaks killing trees and vegetation in the vicinity of where they occur, but collectively they are leaking a large amount of methane into the atmosphere that contributes to global warming. And given that methane is 20 times more potent as a greenhouse gas, it means if the estimates of the leaks were to be correct, natural gas would actually be worse for global warming than coal. This would have powerful implications for US energy policy, given that natural gas is being sold as a cleaner burning fossil fuel, when the leaks completely undermine it's "clean" premise.
geeze, these things can turn out bad
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Clearly they should have never agreed to build Congress its own subway.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we properly maintain our crumbling infrastructure?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I find it hilarious and sad that a libertarian can't understand that gas companies are doing everything they can to ignore and deflect problems that will cost them large sums of money to fix.
If he wants the problems fix, maybe he should fix it himself.
Gas industry whistleblowers aka Gas Canaries
I went into a dark place there.
It a city that size, that doesn't really seem like that many to me.
All ground water is being pumped full of gasoline, which turns it into a toxic mess. And it cannot be filtered out because of additives in the gasoline which make it cleaner to burn, more air soluable. People out in rural areas are especially effected, literally bathing in toxic water that's causing cancer, burns, and other injuries, and it tastes / smells really bad like chemicals.
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/481
One little spark could eliminate all of Congress and Obama at the same time. Our country could begin to heal.
. . . is some matches. The cities are explosive already.
Homeland Security Didnt Notice a huge risk to security and safety!
Oh my god! Something that's been going on for a century but I haben't heard of it before so it's an emergency to me!
Which:
1. Idiot neophyte journalist trying to get his face in front of a camera?
2. Union/Congressional behind-the-scenes effort to drum up support for spending? Hey, where did the bridge emergency infrastructure god damn now now now emergency go?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The article was pretty light on the actual science behind the leak detection, and what it implies. Here's a few facts to help you understand more. 5,000+ 'leaks': This is actually 5000+ areas where the concentration of methane is above some pre-determined number. The instruments used measure into parts-per-billion range, and they also classify every high reading as a leak. While this is likely true in the majority of cases, they seem to neglect things like anaerobic decomposition in sewers, drains and other such places. 'Explosion': Combustion of methane in an unenclosed space has a flame propagation speed that is sub-sonic. Enclosed spaces change the physics of the produced pressure wave and can explode. As methane is lighter than air, this is actually quite difficult to achieve naturally. Propane and higher hydrocarbons are heavier than air and tend to collection in low areas. '10 times the thresh hold for explosion': See above. Methane's lower flammability limit is 5% (in air), and the upper bond is 25%. This concentration would have been too rich to be flammable (5% x 10 = 50%). However at that concentration, the atmosphere in the space is approximately 10% oxygen and you would suffocate.
Or a lighter.....
From the article:
If this is true (I imagine it might vary by jurisdiction), then the incentive runs the other way: companies are paid to pump gas into the pipes regardless of whether it reaches its destination. They actually get to sell more gas if some of it leaks.
In theory, there would be an optimal level of leaks that maximizes profits; from a financial point of view it would actually make sense for a company to ensure that leaks did not fall below this number. I'm certainly not suggesting companies are choosing to leak deliberately (it seems unlikely to me), but that's one hell of an incentive structure.
If the quote is accurate and representative. Journalists have been known to get things wrong. I would be curious to hear whether you know about that side of things.
The politicians are contributing enough gas for all of us!
I keep getting these notices from my gas provider telling me that they need to change out my meter and inspect for leaks. Thing is, I watched them dig up the streets about 3 years ago and put in new PVC for gas service. So it's not a leak. I just failed to tell them I heat with gas.
I failed to tell them because they want to charge extra on the customer charge and then the therm factor (Which in my thinking is a money grab and nothing more!) goes up significantly. To hell with them. And the language used in the letters - that my gas service COULD be discontinued - not that it will, but it something more nebulous that they COULD. I pay the bill every month. So what the hell do they care?
See, natural gas burns easily. That means that it's got some property that makes it reactive with oxygen. Now, if you weren't so proud of your ignorance, you'd know that methane has a half-life in the atmosphere, and that this isn't really that big a deal in the 100 year time frame, and not a big deal in the 10 year time frame. That's why nobody gets carbon credits for fixing leaks.
Just to give you some context, in case you're not deliberately ignorant, carbon dioxide is so inert that it's actually put on flames to put them out. That means that in a highly energetic, ionized environment, it still remains carbon dioxide, stable enough to displace oxygen and put out fires. It takes something peculiar (a catalyst) and energy to break down CO2. We call that phototsynthesis, which uses chlorophyl and light. However, that's grossly limited by the available water and sunlight, so that doesn't happen nearly fast enough to compensate for burning millenia of stored up dead dinosaurs to drive SUVs a few blocks to the grocery store.
Legitimate debate is something that happened between the dead white dudes who wrote the Constitution. We've so far Progressed beyond that and all of those filthy old capitalist practices.
wow, way to totally miss the point and illustrate the joke at the same time. You must be an American, to miss an underplayed jab like that.
That tired old man on the moon grouse hasn't been used for a generation, or more, for obvious reasons.
And you manage to drag Obummer into it.
Of the system their bread and butter instead give it to investors and expect tax payer bailout as per usual. Electric grid, water, sewer. Banks you name it. Only person not holding the back The companies investors. Take from everyone give and give to the wealthy. I am leaning anarchist more and more. None for one none for all.
I blew the whistle on Washington Gas for not repairing leaks classified as dangerous according to there own guideline. Leaks would be repaired in wealthy white areas and almost completely ignored in poorer ones.This is not new news as I reported this well over 5 years ago. I was a technician for Washington Gas testing afd repairing gas leaks. On many occasions I was instructed to lie about leaks and saw foreman tear up leak reports or send another tech to down grade leaks. Washington gas lied so they could cut man power and make more money buy risking the lives of the public.The DC public service commission was contacted and tried to put this under the rug. Ben Eisler formerly of channel 7 news in the only reporter brave enough to investigate this. I was fired for alleged violence as the Teamsters were complicate in these actions. I worked for Washington Gas nearly 10 years and made a good salary, but not enough to put you all at risk.
In Soviet Russia streets leak from gas pipes.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Todd Giffen, also known as "StrStr", also known in Springfield Oregon as the Park Masturbater , as he likes to "whip it out" in a number of the public parks near his Centennial Blvd. digs... Todd will tell you (on his Twitter feed) that the NSA beams instructions into his head to "pleasure" himself...
We've got a fuel source, all over DC.
Can somebody just step in with an oven lighter and fix america for us?
Cheers
Australian Anon
Watch-out for them...
Mirelurks too.