Pipeline Explosion in Deer Park

[Hate 20106]

6 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

This is a stupid post.

1) 100 feet is not that far. A car going 35 mph will cover it in 2 seconds.

2) the area has a decent amount of traffic. It isnt like a random spot in West Texas seeing a car once an hour or so.

3) the amount of damage that can be caused, both in lost product and disrupted operations and in damage to the surrounding area, greatly eclipses the few thousand dollars to install modest barriers that would prevent 99.99% of realistic situations. 

4) I'll happily bet you $1,000 that once repaired, a barrier will be constructed at this location. 

It isn't about it being an evil oil and gas corporation. It is about what a responsible entity would do both to protect its own financial interests and to protect the public. This is a no brainer for any organization. 

Yet this had never occurred before.  And the "traffic" didn't even come from the goddamn road.  It came from the parking lot.  Maybe the store ought to put up bollards to keep cars in the parking lot. 

Edit: and Captainant absolutely made it about "energy" companies earlier.  You may not care, but he certainly does. 

Edited September 19 by Hate

[Dahobbs 17526]

7 minutes ago, Hate said:

Yet this had never occurred before.  And the "traffic" didn't even come from the goddamn road.  It came from the parking lot.  Maybe the store ought to put up bollards to keep cars in the parking lot. 

So? It never occurred before. But it has occurred now. As you said, this valve was installed somewhere around 2002. If this is an event that occurs once every 20 years at this location, building the barrier is a no brainer economically. Even if it only occurred once every 100 years, it would still be no brainer. The cost of the prevention is de minimus compared to the expected damage. 

And the store is unlikely to have any liability, so not much financial incentive. Even if the pipeline has no liability to a 3rd party, its lost many many times the the cost of prevention purely in lost product and disrupted operations. Economically, building a barrier is the smart move. And I guarantee it will. Do you disagree?

Edited September 19 by Dahobbs

[Hate 20106]

1 minute ago, Dahobbs said:

So? It never occurred before. But it has occurred now. As you said, this valve was installed somewhere around 2002. If this is an even that occurs once every 20 years at this location, building the barrier is a no brainer economically. Even if it only occurred once every 100 years, it would still be no brainer. The cost of the prevention is de minimus compared to the expected damage. 

I've never once said that the companies shouldn't do it based on the economic impact.  I've said that it is unnecessary as the risk of a similar event seems to be minuscule. 

[Dahobbs 17526]

12 minutes ago, Hate said:

I've never once said that the companies shouldn't do it based on the economic impact.  I've said that it is unnecessary as the risk of a similar event seems to be minuscule. 

Those are contradictory statements. If it should build the barriers based upon economic impact, the risk isnt de minimis. Further, when evaluating risk, you have to look at likelihood of occurrence and magnitude of impact.

Just run the numbers. Let's say this event has a 1% chance at happening in any given year (or a once in every 100 years event). And let's say the purely economic damage to the company if an event occurs is $5,000,000. That means the expected yearly damage is $50,000. So, purely from an economic perspective, if the company can spend any amount less than $50,000 per year to prevent the event, it should do so. When the cost of prevention is a few thousand dollars and when the possible damage is in the millions, prevention is economically beneficial even if the chance of occurrence is extremely low. 

Edited September 19 by Dahobbs

[Captainant 27633]

18 minutes ago, Hate said:

Edit: and Captainant absolutely made it about "energy" companies earlier.  You may not care, but he certainly does. 

Lol Rex made it about energy companies, I was trying to stick to O&G! In particular, this company profiteered off of the Feb'21 freeze and made billions on the corpses of hundreds of Texans. You're goddamn right I hold them in contempt. Even moreso if the defense is that it's too expensive to protect the thousands of families they operate around

I called out centerpoint not as an O&G example, but as an example of piss poor corporate maintenance posture and over-indexing on maximizing profits over mitigating risks that has led to multiple disasters within the last several years. 

[chainsaw 9857]

[fattyflattie 4639]

1 hour ago, Hate said:

You just want to point the finger at big bad oil and capitalism.  That's it. 

But you don’t understand. They made 2B by being in a business at an opportune time from an event that they had no control over, once.  They made money and it’s just not fair11!1! 

[fattyflattie 4639]

1 hour ago, Captainant said:

You're just putting words in my mouth and doing fattyflatty and GRUhorn's work for them to put words in my mouth

You diarrhea dumb thoughts constantly comrade, no need to put words in your mouth. 

[Hate 20106]

19 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Those are contradictory statements. If it should build the barriers based upon economic impact, the risk isnt de minimis. Further, when evaluating risk, you have to look at likelihood of occurrence and magnitude of impact.

Just run the numbers. Let's say this event has a 1% chance at happening in any given year (or a once in every 100 years event). And let's say the purely economic damage to the company if an event occurs is $5,000,000. That means the expected yearly damage is $50,000. So, purely from an economic perspective, if the company can spend any amount less than $50,000 per year to prevent the event, it should do so. When the cost of prevention is a few thousand dollars and when the possible damage is in the millions, prevention is economically beneficial even if the chance of occurrence is extremely low. 

Look, I don't care if they put bollards there or not.  I do not believe they are necessary.  This was a one time event.  Cars and pipelines have coexisted for a very long time with this being the first recorded such event.  But if you and Cap want to run a picket for bollards once the flames go out, go ahead. 

[fattyflattie 4639]

26 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

If it should build the barriers based upon economic impact

Correct. This doesn’t have shit to do with being industry subsidies, or having a profitable year due to a Wx event, or holding bitchmade feelings of contempt about the success of the company.  This is a math problem and I’m pretty sure this isn’t the first time it’s been looked at.  Capt, what you going to cry about when the bollard companies post the best income statements in their history? 

[Dahobbs 17526]

9 minutes ago, Hate said:

Look, I don't care if they put bollards there or not.  I do not believe they are necessary.  This was a one time event.  Cars and pipelines have coexisted for a very long time with this being the first recorded such event.  But if you and Cap want to run a picket for bollards once the flames go out, go ahead. 

What's wrong with my math? By your own account this valve existed for about 20 years, much of that time before the area was developed and had significant traffic. The evidence right now is that this is a once in 20 year event or possibly higher given the development in the area. If that is the case, and given the amount of money they have lost, a barrier is no brainer. I'm not moralizing. I'm not condemning. I'm running the numbers. This could be a .01% chance of occurring per year and it would still be economically beneficial to spend a few thousand putting in barriers. I don't know why you're fighting this. The math makes this an easy choice. This was an oversight, one I'm sure will be corrected. 

Edited September 19 by Dahobbs

[Captainant 27633]

Lol O&G finance bros bigmad 

[Steel Shank 9421]

Pipe talk not going away.

[Dahobbs 17526]

1 minute ago, Steel Shank said:

Pipe talk not going away.

Explosions happen when laying pipe. 

[Steel Shank 9421]

Just now, Dahobbs said:

Explosions happen when laying pipe. 

fuckin a

[Rex Kramer 1333]

2 hours ago, Captainant said:

Lol Rex made it about energy companies, I was trying to stick to O&G! In particular, this company profiteered off of the Feb'21 freeze and made billions on the corpses of hundreds of Texans. You're goddamn right I hold them in contempt. Even moreso if the defense is that it's too expensive to protect the thousands of families they operate around

I called out centerpoint not as an O&G example, but as an example of piss poor corporate maintenance posture and over-indexing on maximizing profits over mitigating risks that has led to multiple disasters within the last several years. 

You’re an absolute assclown of epic proportions. 

[Brisketexan 105065]

Look, I don't care if they put bollards there or not.  I do not believe they are necessary.  This was a one time event.  Cars and pipelines have coexisted for a very long time with this being the first recorded such event.  But if you and Cap want to run a picket for bollards once the flames go out, go ahead. 

Wait…you’re contending that this is the first time a vehicle has hit a piece of above ground gas infrastructure, causing a fire?
Seriously? WTF?

[Zepol87 9185]

5 hours ago, blacklab said:

There's 3 million miles of natural gas pipeline, figure a valve a mile and 4 bollards at $1000 a pop we're talking about $12 billion to do this.

How much damage is this going to do? $10 million, $100 million? Probably need to have a few more accidents before it's economically wise to start the natural gas pipeline Manhattan project.

I could sub that shit out to some family members and get it done for tree fiddy and some bud light 

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4975]

2 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

What's wrong with my math? By your own account this valve existed for about 20 years, much of that time before the area was developed and had significant traffic. The evidence right now is that this is a once in 20 year event or possibly higher given the development in the area. If that is the case, and given the amount of money they have lost, a barrier is no brainer. I'm not moralizing. I'm not condemning. I'm running the numbers. This could be a .01% chance of occurring per year and it would still be economically beneficial to spend a few thousand putting in barriers. I don't know why you're fighting this. The math makes this an easy choice. This was an oversight, one I'm sure will be corrected. 

The math doesn't show that. That's like saying a correctly guessed coin flip on the first try means there is a 100% success rate. More than likely there are hundreds of similarly situated valves out there that have never been hit. So you have to factor those in as well when calculating the odds. Then you have to look at the cost of a pipeline company putting in the bollards, not the cost of the local 7-11. To be qualified to bid on something like that, a contractor has to carry the necessary insurance and meet a bunch of qualifications that kinda seem like a good old boy system. The cost of them is probably four times the cost of what it would be for a typical retail type company. So you figure there are a hundred of these similarly situated valves. One gets hit in 20 years. That's a once every two thousand year occurrence. Not a one in 20. So that $4000 dollars per valve expense is closer to $16000. Multiplied by 100 valves it's $1.6 million. And before this week, it was statistically one of those things where the odds were so low it was considered pretty much non-existant. 

[Goredho 17395]

Holy shit, the Surly legal eagles ain’t got nothin’ on the Surly O&G scholars.  Stay loquacious, my dudes.

[Zepol87 9185]

6 minutes ago, Goredho said:

Holy shit, the Surly legal eagles ain’t got nothin’ on the Surly O&G scholars.  Stay loquacious, my dudes.

It is all about the stream 

[bolverk 29655]

1 hour ago, Zepol87 said:

It is all about the stream 

The streams must flow...just don't cross 'em.

[Dahobbs 17526]

7 hours ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

The math doesn't show that. That's like saying a correctly guessed coin flip on the first try means there is a 100% success rate. More than likely there are hundreds of similarly situated valves out there that have never been hit. So you have to factor those in as well when calculating the odds. Then you have to look at the cost of a pipeline company putting in the bollards, not the cost of the local 7-11. To be qualified to bid on something like that, a contractor has to carry the necessary insurance and meet a bunch of qualifications that kinda seem like a good old boy system. The cost of them is probably four times the cost of what it would be for a typical retail type company. So you figure there are a hundred of these similarly situated valves. One gets hit in 20 years. That's a once every two thousand year occurrence. Not a one in 20. So that $4000 dollars per valve expense is closer to $16000. Multiplied by 100 valves it's $1.6 million. And before this week, it was statistically one of those things where the odds were so low it was considered pretty much non-existant. 

1) not really the first time of one of these has been hit. It is the first time this particular one has been hit. 

2) I guarantee you that many of the ones that are similarly situated already have protection. 

3) I guarantee you this one will be protected after this event. 

This was an oversight. It was installed before the development in the area and was overlooked as a risk as the area continued to develop around it. When the cost of mitigation is a small fraction of yearly expected value of an incident, you do the mitigation. 

[gofuckyourself 8204]

So is the fire out?

Or do I need to check the Whataburger app?

[Evil Bill Obrien 3259]

11 minutes ago, gofuckyourself said:

So is the fire out?

Or do I need to check the Whataburger app?

Flipped the news on around 6:30 this morning and it was still burning, albeit much, much smaller than before. Was more like Al Davis eternal flame than raging industrial accident flame.

[Captainant 27633]

Evacuation order was lifted yesterday at 6pm

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/environment/article/deer-park-pipeline-fire-suv-19772158.php

The fire is not fully extinguished, but officials said they expect repairs to be fully complete by 6 p.m. Thursday. Once the repairs are made, the fire should take roughly two to three hours to die down, according to a news release. 

[SydneyCarton 48054]

So I made the mistake of clicking on this fucking thread a day later. Fuck. 

 

19 hours ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

If you want to see what pipelines are near you, there is a viewer on the bottom of this page:

https://tx.pipeline-awareness.com/national_pipeline_mapping/

 

Austin: Meh

 

Houston: Yikes.

 

 

 

Holla, living inside the loop. 

[luke duke 6412]

Sidenote, I was curious on what the safety reg is for pipeline valve safety and found the following:
https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/regulations/title49/interp/pi-12-0008

In a letter to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) dated August 9, 2012, the Associated Safety Consultants (ASC), Inc., requested an interpretation of the applicability of the Federal pipeline safety regulations at 49 CFR 192.317(b) to an aboveground gas transmission line or main.  Specifically, ASC asks PHMSA's interpretation of how a 'safe distance' is defined or determined, and what would constitute an effective barricade?

Section 192.317(b) reads as follows:

(b) Each aboveground transmission line or main, not located offshore or in inland navigable water areas, must be protected from accidental damage by vehicular traffic or other similar causes, either by being placed at a safe distance from the traffic or by installing barricades. 

PHMSA has not adopted general criteria to judge the safety of distances and effective barricades separating aboveground gas pipeline facilities from vehicular traffic.  Therefore, a safe distance and effective barricade would be whatever a reasonable and prudent pipeline operator would conclude is safe under the site specific circumstances, considering relevant factors such as the speed limit, the direction of traffic, the terrain, and any natural barriers.

 
So there's no actual rules or regulations on what is required, just as long as it passes the gut check of the operator. The valve is 100 feet from a 50mph road (45 posted, but cmon its Houston yall), surrounded by gravel. A chainlink fence seems sub-par at best.

If we want to split hairs, the pipeline and mainline valve appear to be below ground. It looks like either the smaller blowoff valve and/or the above ground actuator is what was hit.

[Gatorubet 30185]

9 hours ago, Goredho said:

Holy shit, the Surly legal eagles ain’t got nothin’ on the Surly O&G scholars.  Stay loquacious, my dudes.

Dude.  We will soon have multiple 1000 page depositions discussing the 20 page O&G expert reports.

[Rex Kramer 1333]

14 hours ago, Captainant said:

Lol Rex made it about energy companies, I was trying to stick to O&G! In particular, this company profiteered off of the Feb'21 freeze and made billions on the corpses of hundreds of Texans. You're goddamn right I hold them in contempt. Even moreso if the defense is that it's too expensive to protect the thousands of families they operate around

I called out centerpoint not as an O&G example, but as an example of piss poor corporate maintenance posture and over-indexing on maximizing profits over mitigating risks that has led to multiple disasters within the last several years. 

No, you clown. YOU made it about “oil and gas” because of your ignorance and your political desire to disparage anything hydrocarbon related. This is why I’m calling you out. Again, I made a simple one-line response about your characterization of oil and gas, which is fucking dead wrong, and you’ve tripled and quadrupled down. 

[Dahobbs 17526]

5 minutes ago, Rex Kramer said:

No, you clown. YOU made it about “oil and gas” because of your ignorance and your political desire to disparage anything hydrocarbon related. This is why I’m calling you out. Again, I made a simple one-line response about your characterization of oil and gas, which is fucking dead wrong, and you’ve tripled and quadrupled down. 

Why is this still a fight? I actually agree that @Captainant is going a little hard with the anti-business rhetoric. But I don't understand your argument here at all. Energy Transfer considers itself part of the oil and gas industry. That should be the end of this argument. No one really cares how the finance bros think of it. 

22 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

I don't know, Energy Transfer Partners seems to feel differently. It posted a YouTube video entitled "We're Proud to be a Leader in the Oil & Gas Industry"

I don't really get why this is so contentious either way. 

 

[PTINS 3463]

10 hours ago, Goredho said:

Holy shit, the Surly legal eagles ain’t got nothin’ on the Surly O&G scholars.  Stay loquacious, my dudes.

I was a midstream guy before midstream was a thing and have provided expert witness analysis and testimony on Midstream contracts and damages for 20+ years. They usually involve correlating a relatively simple business concept to a very complicated operational issue, that was memorialized in a few words in a contract that can be interpreted different ways.  Regardless of the words, there are always overwhelming numbers of numbers involved, and "the trend is your friend."

I've always enjoyed the perverse entertainment value of depositions, getting down to the nuts and bolts of a complex issue, usually with reams of data and numbers, that ends up with confused attorney's chasing their tails and saying, "Don't ask him that!".

More often than not, the opposing expert witness is a finance person or an accountant, and that's never a fair fight. 

[wildcat09 29345]

I know Rex has always been Rex, but am I wrong or does it seem like recently he's been entering into the rarified air of Slorch? Maybe he's always been this ridiculous, but this feels like something new.

[Captainant 27633]

24 minutes ago, Rex Kramer said:

No, you clown. YOU made it about “oil and gas” because of your ignorance and your political desire to disparage anything hydrocarbon related.

I don't hate hydrocarbon businesses. I hate businesses that are poor stewards of their operations and frequently leave extremely hazardous disasters for the public to clean up and pay for. These guys skimped on improving protection more than a chainlink fence as the area around the valve changed from a field to a road to a whole neighborhood. 

I cannot believe that a chain link fence is the standard of protection for extremely dangerous machinery that is (1) next to an active roadway (2) in the middle of a residential area and (3) going to impact the health and homes of thousands of families should ANYTHING happen to it.

24 minutes ago, Rex Kramer said:

Again, I made a simple one-line response about your characterization of oil and gas, which is fucking dead wrong, and you’ve tripled and quadrupled down. 

And also, midstreams are absolutely an O&G entity. Sorry you are so triggered by that lol. And as I mentioned upthread, I was not calling out CP as an O&G but as another recent and local happenstance of deffered maintenance and improvements leading to significant public damage and issues.

Edited September 19 by Captainant

[Dahobbs 17526]

15 minutes ago, PTINS said:

I was a midstream guy before midstream was a thing and have provided expert witness analysis and testimony on Midstream contracts and damages for 20+ years. They usually involve correlating a relatively simple business concept to a very complicated operational issue, that was memorialized in a few words in a contract that can be interpreted different ways.  Regardless of the words, there are always overwhelming numbers of numbers involved, and "the trend is your friend."

I've always enjoyed the perverse entertainment value of depositions, getting down to the nuts and bolts of a complex issue, usually with reams of data and numbers, that ends up with confused attorney's chasing their tails and saying, "Don't ask him that!".

More often than not, the opposing expert witness is a finance person or an accountant, and that's never a fair fight. 

I'm now curious if I've used you as an expert or cross-examined you before. 

[Goredho 17395]

43 minutes ago, PTINS said:

I was a midstream guy before midstream was a thing and have provided expert witness analysis and testimony on Midstream contracts and damages for 20+ years. They usually involve correlating a relatively simple business concept to a very complicated operational issue, that was memorialized in a few words in a contract that can be interpreted different ways.  Regardless of the words, there are always overwhelming numbers of numbers involved, and "the trend is your friend."

I've always enjoyed the perverse entertainment value of depositions, getting down to the nuts and bolts of a complex issue, usually with reams of data and numbers, that ends up with confused attorney's chasing their tails and saying, "Don't ask him that!".

More often than not, the opposing expert witness is a finance person or an accountant, and that's never a fair fight. 

Somewhere on another plane of existence, YGIFs/Lobo is looking at this thread like…

[Rex Kramer 1333]

1 hour ago, Dahobbs said:

Why is this still a fight? I actually agree that @Captainant is going a little hard with the anti-business rhetoric. But I don't understand your argument here at all. Energy Transfer considers itself part of the oil and gas industry. That should be the end of this argument. No one really cares how the finance bros think of it. 

A little hard?  lol. This is why it’s still a fight. I admit I’m being hyperbolic. Yes ETP is a part of the O&G industry. It is not an oil and gas company. 

[royiv 9251]

[CHIEF 5076]

1 hour ago, Captainant said:

I don't hate hydrocarbon businesses. I hate businesses that are poor stewards of their operations and frequently leave extremely hazardous disasters for the public to clean up and pay for. These guys skimped on improving protection more than a chainlink fence as the area around the valve changed from a field to a road to a whole neighborhood. 

I cannot believe that a chain link fence is the standard of protection for extremely dangerous machinery that is (1) next to an active roadway (2) in the middle of a residential area and (3) going to impact the health and homes of thousands of families should ANYTHING happen to it.

And also, midstreams are absolutely an O&G entity. Sorry you are so triggered by that lol. And as I mentioned upthread, I was not calling out CP as an O&G but as another recent and local happenstance of deffered maintenance and improvements leading to significant public damage and issues.

Again, who "skimped"? The pigging valve has been there for a lot longer than the suburban growth around it. Fingers can be pointed at any number of entities. But, I can guarantee you that the cost will ultimately be passed to the consumers. As much as you hate it, earnings goals will still be met.

CHIEF

[Brisketexan 105065]

3 minutes ago, CHIEF said:

Again, who "skimped"? The pigging valve has been there for a lot longer than the suburban growth around it. Fingers can be pointed at any number of entities. But, I can guarantee you that the cost will ultimately be passed to the consumers. As much as you hate it, earnings goals will still be met.

CHIEF

Which is one of the things that make it even worse.

Bad decision that costs company lots of money?  Zero consequences for execs and shareholders, big consequences for captive consumers.  "No matter how stupid we are, YOU get to pay for our stupidity" is....what's the term folks like to use?  Oh yeah....socialism.

Most folks around here don't have a problem with profits.  They're good, they motivate positive market activity.  What we have a problem with is that this shit works like a one-way crab trap: privatized profits, socialized losses.  Things go well?  PROFIT.  Things went south?  STILL PROFIT, BECAUSE SOCIETY WILL PICK UP THE COST.

[Captainant 27633]

10 minutes ago, CHIEF said:

Again, who "skimped"? The pigging valve has been there for a lot longer than the suburban growth around it. Fingers can be pointed at any number of entities.

So in your mind, once built, a facility or piece of machinery never needs to make any updates or site improvements as its surrounding environment changes?

14 minutes ago, CHIEF said:

As much as you hate it, earnings goals will still be met.

Those shares aren't gonna buy themselves back, I hear ya. Gotta make line go up. They're entitled it, after all.

[Rip76 4924]

Human remains found inside SUV that crashed, igniting pipeline fire in Deer Park

 

https://abc13.com/post/energy-transfer-pipeline-fire-vehicle-may-have-ignited-ongoing-flames-pulled-crash-site-deer-parkla-porte-area/15325211/?ex_cid=TA_KTRK_FB&utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+New+Content+(Feed)&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1Q8WGEaM6zZ3bmtw31fNEPFncc3_8hTarIBLUOATOGIuGtFTJ65tuVBkQ_aem_W7wwHGqpPRiIHnFbLd_8Hw
 

 

[Captainant 27633]

Residents are returning homes that are partially melted and took a ton of water damage due to shingles melting off

https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2024/09/19/deer-park-couple-returns-to-homes-devastating-damage-from-intense-pipeline-fire/

Just a titanic amount of damage to protect with only a chain link fence in a residential area. 

[fattyflattie 4639]

15 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Bad decision that costs company lots of money?  Zero consequences for execs and shareholders, big consequences for captive consumers.  "No matter how stupid we are, YOU get to pay for our stupidity" is....what's the term folks like to use?  Oh yeah....socialism.

This bad decision was made by one of the “captive consumers”. Why didn’t the developer that encroached this ROW pay for bollards, because profit.  Why should ET shareholders hold the bag when it could come from the person who caused it, or their insurance?     lol, at “most”.  I agree, but it’s sad that most isn’t all. 

[CHIEF 5076]

6 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Which is one of the things that make it even worse.

Bad decision that costs company lots of money?  Zero consequences for execs and shareholders, big consequences for captive consumers.  "No matter how stupid we are, YOU get to pay for our stupidity" is....what's the term folks like to use?  Oh yeah....socialism.

Most folks around here don't have a problem with profits.  They're good, they motivate positive market activity.  What we have a problem with is that this shit works like a one-way crab trap: privatized profits, socialized losses.  Things go well?  PROFIT.  Things went south?  STILL PROFIT, BECAUSE SOCIETY WILL PICK UP THE COST.

It's like what was said up above, if you build things that can withstand every possible scenario that can fuck it up, planes would be too heavy to fly, and cars would be too expensive to buy. Making everything idoit proof is a very expensive and wasteful endeavor. Ultimately it comes down to risks people are willing to accept, like people living  close to pipelines to save money on their housing location. People living close to petrochemical plants because they work there, and want to be 10 minutes from work. The Polly Anna-ish take that any and all hazards must be eliminated or mitigated in all aspects of everyone's daily lives is asinine. I know most on here accept that, but not all.

CHIEF

[Dahobbs 17526]

1 minute ago, CHIEF said:

It's like what was said up above, if you build things that can withstand every possible scenario that can fuck it up, planes would be too heavy to fly, and cars would be too expensive to buy. Making everything idoit proof is a very expensive and wasteful endeavor. Ultimately it comes down to risks people are willing to accept, like people living  close to pipelines to save money on their housing location. People living close to petrochemical plants because they work there, and want to be 10 minutes from work. The Polly Anna-ish take that any and all hazards must be eliminated or mitigated in all aspects of everyone's daily lives is asinine. I know most on here accept that, but not all.

CHIEF

But that isn't the issue here. Cheap and solved solutions are available to mitigate this risk. This isn't about "every possible scenario" or "any and all hazards," and it isn't about perfect protection. It is about a solution that (1) is already employed in many locations, (2) is extremely cheap and easy to implement, and (3) addresses a demonstrable risk in certain more highly developed areas. What you're talking about is protecting pipelines from something like meteor impacts, missile strikes, or cloned dinosaur attacks.  I agree, those would be silly and uneconomical to mitigate against. This situation isn't that. Just because it is relatively rare, doesn't mean mitigation is not worthwhile. 

[Captainant 27633]

9 minutes ago, CHIEF said:

The Polly Anna-ish take that any and all hazards must be eliminated or mitigated in all aspects of everyone's daily lives is asinine. I know most on here accept that, but not all.

That's literally not what I or brisket or Dahobbs are saying. Y'all are running it to the extreme and then tilting off on that straw man and then insinuating I'm a communist pollyanna. 

[Trey3216 15344]

36 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Which is one of the things that make it even worse.

Bad decision that costs company lots of money?  Zero consequences for execs and shareholders, big consequences for captive consumers.  "No matter how stupid we are, YOU get to pay for our stupidity" is....what's the term folks like to use?  Oh yeah....socialism.

Most folks around here don't have a problem with profits.  They're good, they motivate positive market activity.  What we have a problem with is that this shit works like a one-way crab trap: privatized profits, socialized losses.  Things go well?  PROFIT.  Things went south?  STILL PROFIT, BECAUSE SOCIETY WILL PICK UP THE COST.

Since the pipeline predated the homes being built, perhaps the developer should be at fault for not paying ETP to put up bollards around the valve in the middle of the field.  I mean, they have to pay to put in streets and and water lines and other such shit.   Shouldn't the be a consideration.  

 

 

And Captainant, guess what guards every wind turbine you see on the horizon....

[Captainant 27633]

Just now, Trey3216 said:

And Captainant, guess what guards every wind turbine you see on the horizon....

Last time I checked, those don't explode and aren't in residential areas. C'mon, man. That's apples and oranges. Although both can give you cancer depending on who you ask...

[Trey3216 15344]

5 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Last time I checked, those don't explode and aren't in residential areas. C'mon, man. That's apples and oranges. Although both can give you cancer depending on who you ask...

It's merely an example.  Hell, most military base perimeters are primarily chain link fencing.   Most gas stations only have bollards at either end of the fuel pump with 10-15 feet in between where the pump actually sits.  Let's start a bollard war against every small time business owner who doesn't have enough bollards or only employs chain link fence.

 

Yes, I'm being hyperbolic, but the absurdity of it is equivalent to your wanton blame-casting....which is of no surprise.