The Daily Sentinel, Wed. January 12, 2000 p. 3A

Colorado Highway 139 across Douglas Pass remained closed late Tuesday while authorities investigated a ruptured natural-gas pipeline that blew a consderable hole in the highway. No one was injured and at least three homes were evacuated after the 6:30 p.m. rupture at the bottom of the north side of Douglas Pass, said Wade Haerle, spokeman for Public Service Co. of Colorado. Haerle said preliminary reports indicated a movement in the earth caused a Public Service 8-inch, high pressure, natural gas line to shift and rupture. The 600-pound-pressure line ruptured and blew away dirt and asphalt, creating a crater in the road. "It just pulled apart," Haerle said. "It's about 600 pounds of pressure on that line so what would happen is it blows through the pipe and blew all the dirt and asphalt out of there." Haerle said the Colorado Department of Transportation would likely look at the site today to determine when the road might be reopened. The Colorado State Patrol closed the highway at both ends Tuesday evening and was not allowing people within six miles of the site, a natural gas company spokesman said. Haerle said Public Service crews had secured the line by late Tuesday evening and had sent in crews to repair the line and determine what may have happened.

***************** comments:

I have traveled that pass and it is a steep, switchbacked, closed-after-a-big-snowstorm kind of route. Being in the high desert it has limited vegetation to hold soil and has frequent rockslides. I am not surprised if the earth moved... much as I like RC's take on oil and gas embedded problems the jury is still out on this one and the preliminary vote is to acquit...

--mudpuppy

-- mudpuppy (im@agine.that), January 13, 2000

Answers

As I recall (you may correct me if wrong) but don't most natural gas pipelines have pressure sensing stations positioned at about every 50 miles or so on the line. The line has compressors to maintain a controlled pressure also positioned to make up for friction loss in the pipe and drawoff to surrounding customers as the pipelines branch northward.

A Y2K connection is very possible given that some compressing stations are down unexpectedly and line pressure may be more volatile to both the high or the low side.

-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), January 13, 2000.

gas line in colorado, water main in cleveland

-- boop (leafyspurge@hotmail.com), January 13, 2000.

I agree with Bill. This definitely appears to be Y2K related.

-- (ronR@horest.org), January 13, 2000.

I'm a doomer, but sometimes these things just blow up--honest.

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), January 13, 2000.

Yup, another earth movement problem. Just like the one I described in Pacific Northwest back in '98. Doesn't make sense that these systems would not be designed to account for these kinds of earth events since the designers know they WILL happen. Kind of like the boys killed in Bellingham, WA. Sometimes stuff just happens.

Hey, when you you see a big fire ball from miles away, and you know they must be working on these systems in preparation for y2k, well??? Na, no way.

Nope, can't be systems related. Things just do blow up sometimes. It's an act of God that cannot be prevented/caused by man.

-- warren blim (mr_little@yahoo.com), January 13, 2000.

I'm a doomer, but sometimes these things just blow up--honest.

So this is all just a coincidence? I think not. There's too much spin in the article. Don't fall for the party line.

-- (ronR@horest.org), January 13, 2000.

Here's an article on the fire I saw in '97. Hey it was way back in '97. No way that was y2k related. Also there was a fire near the Canadian border the same weekend on another section of line.

http://www.lubbockonline.com/news/021097/second.htm

And here's possibly the latest on the Bellingham (boys in the park) pipeline rupture:

http://www.heraldnet.com/Stories/99/10/12/11453172.htm

Note: Olympic plans to inspect pipeline - No more pressure testing set, despite officials' demands...

Can't mess around with pressure testing anymore - stuff blows up.

-- warren blim (mr_little@yahoo.com), January 13, 2000.

I have driven this pass many a time as an adult, and rememeber it when I was a kid. They have slides all the time. The road is nothing but patched asphalt and dirt all the way up. It has to be one of the most unstable passes in Colorado. I am sure the story is true. Unless you have been over this pass right after it rained or right after a slide, you don't know nothing.

-- P.J. Scott (rwcapitalmanage@aol.com), January 13, 2000.