The industry-commissioned formula for estimating the blast radius of methane gas pipelines is likely insufficient to protect people from an explosion, a government watchdog warns, but federal regulators aren’t collecting the data necessary to assess or fix it. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) warned the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) last year of inadequacy of current blast radius formula, saying it underestimates the area where people could be wounded or killed by a pipeline explosion. But, PHMSA isn’t collecting the data necessary to calculate a new formula, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report released Wednesday. From 2010 to 2021, more than 2,600 pipeline leaks or other incidents were sufficiently serious to warrant their reporting to the federal government, including 328 explosions killing 122 people and injuring more than 600 more. E&E $)
