A.D. Koen
Senior Editor-News
All but a handful of pipelines crossing the San Jacinto River east of Houston last week had restored at least partial service after flood related outages in Southeast Texas.
Operations had been halted voluntarily Oct. 20 on about 50 lines at the request of the Texas Railroad Commission (TRC) when high water cut a new channel as much as 16 ft deep across the San Jacinto's floodplain north of Interstate Highway 10 (1-10), damaging several pipelines and causing some leaks.
TRC asked operators of the pipelines along a 5 mile stretch of the river to temporarily shut down after unleaded gasoline leaking from a ruptured 40 in. products line about 2 miles north of 1-10 owned by Colonial Pipeline Co., Atlanta, caught fire and sent a wall of flame and dark smoke hundreds of feet high racing down the San Jacinto (OGJ, Oct. 31, p. 22).
Within 24 hr, material released by a flood damaged a 36 in. Colonial products pipeline and a 20 in., bidirectional Texaco Pipeline Inc. crude oil line also began fueling the flame.
In all, more than a dozen pipelines were reported damaged by the flood, most at locations on or near the San Jacinto's new channel, about 400 yd west of a horseshoe bend marking the old river bed. Other pipelines reporting flood related releases included a 12 in., 100 MMcfd gas pipeline operated by Valero Natural Gas Partners LP and an Exxon Pipeline Co. 8 in. LPG line.
In addition to the LPG line, two other Exxon pipelines-a 20 in. crude oil line and 8 in. products line-were damaged badly enough to leak. But by the time the leaks developed, the company had purged the lines of product and filled them with nitrogen, so no product escaped.
Meantime, federal and Texas officials, pipeline spill response teams, and about two dozen spill remediation contactors had recovered nearly all of the unburned oil and petroleum products released into the river from flood damaged lines. Also, plans were being laid last week for bioremediation of petroleum polluted river banks and wetland areas.
STATUS OF REPAIRS
TRC said pipeline repair and spill cleanups on the San Jacinto were winding down last week. Only a handful of companies with affected lines still were shut in Nov. 1, and most of the rest either had resumed operations or had received approval to resume. "As companies finish testing intrastate lines, they come to us and show us their results," a TRC official said. "We send an inspector out to verify the results and approve their requests. It's up to each company as to when to go ahead."
Colonial expected to finish temporarily restoring service on Line 2 on the afternoon of Nov. 2. The company had laid about 1,000 ft of 36 in. steel replacement line with 1/2 in. W.T. and coated with 7 in. of concrete. Two new block valves also were installed on the temporary line at sites nearer the San Jacinto.
Colonial about 1 a.m. Nov. 2 finished tying in the temporary line and at 4:50 a.m. began refilling the link with low sulfur distillate at a rate of about 15,000 bbl/hr.
"Once we have vacated the nitrogen and finished refilling the line, we'll start shipping at a rate of 34,500 bbl/hr," a Colonial official said.
About 40% of Colonial's throughput originates in the Houston area. While Lines 1 and 2 were out of commission, Colonial shippers managed to maintain about 75% of deliveries east of the San Jacinto with more costly alternative transportation or by drawing on supplies from refineries east of the severed links.
PERMANENT REPAIR PLANS
Colonial plans to skip temporary repairs to Line 1 and permanently repair Line 1 and Line 2 soon by laying pipe in two long, deep bores under the river's floodplain.
Among other companies with pipelines that reported leaks during the flooding, Exxon last week was farthest along with permanent repairs. All four Exxon pipelines affected by the flood are to be replaced.
The company had started drilling two parallel 3,000 ft boreholes across the San Jacinto's old channel, new channel, and part of the floodplain. Each of the 48 in. bores is to provide a crossing for three pipelines: a 20 in., a 10 in., and an 8 in.
"That should be completed and the lines put back in operation by about mid-November," an Exxon spokesman said.
Exxon's previous crossings on the San jacinto's horseshoe bend were about 500 ft long.
Texaco and Valero last week were still assessing their situations and had not begun installing permanent replacement pipelines across the river.
"We're evaluating the options we have for moving forward," a Valero official said. "We probably won't determine how we'll repair our gas line or what the cost will be of placing it back in service until the end of the week."
STATUS OF CLEANUP
U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Richard Ford, federal onsite coordinator, late last month estimated that no more than 200 bbl of oil or petroleum products still was floating in the San Jacinto.
"What little oil remains is contained within booms," Ford said. "The lower San Jacinto is clean. The river above I 10 contains small pockets of oil that still need to be recovered, but that shouldn't pose any problem."
In addition to of, and products that burned, evaporated, or dissipated, cleanup crews by Oct. 26 had recovered about 11,000 bbl of fluid from the river, including about 3,800 bbl of oil.
Ford said remediating shoreline and wetland pollution with microbes is a relatively low key operation and will take some time to complete.
"But the oil on the shoreline is not likely to affect the environment any more than it already has," he said.
Copyright 1994 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
Issue date: 11/07/94
