Take a look at the data on the website, http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm . I’m sure none of you will question whether the data is essentially accurate or meaningful. It all makes sense. Oh, there could be some human error in compiling the data, and maybe some of the columns of percentages don’t add up to exactly 100%. But there is an obvious reason why that happens…round-off error. And most of you don’t feel that this negates the entire presentation, I’m sure.
As you look over the data you see how it can be sliced and diced in different ways to focus on certain questions. And there are certain questions that are not addressed, and no explanation is deemed necessary for the omissions. For example, there is no attempt to answer the question, “How many crashes happened on Mars?” That, of course, would be a nonsensical question, wouldn’t it? Because all plane crashes happen on Earth, since that is where air travel occurs.
The statistics of plane crashes are interesting. We can find out what percentage of all crashes occurred in what phase of flight, for example. Of course, we could parse that statistic and argue that all crashes occur upon landing, but when we do that we have no trouble realizing that what the statistic refers to is the phase of flight during which the critical fatal failure occurred that resulted in the crash. And we don’t dismiss all the data because of that analytical exercise, do we?
The percentage of crashes that occurred among commercial airliner flights as opposed to general aviation (private planes) is also a very interesting way to dice the data. The point is that there is no uniformly “correct” way to dice the data. It is diced to answer particular questions.
One particular aspect of plane crash statistics that is very significant is that every person who died in these crashes made a conscious decision to take the calculable risk of a crash when they boarded the fatal flight unless they were a prisoner or a minor whose parent made that decision. Another important aspect of the risk is that it is a risk that exists only for a finite period, not one that is ever-present day after day.
It is easy to understand how the number of plane crashes in a given period of time is related to the number of flight hours logged for that period.
Now let’s consider the risk of pipeline disasters.
Pipeline Disaster Statistics
One of the first things to notice about pipeline disaster statistics is that very few people have any ideas about them at all. Until the industry had been here in Fort Worth long enough for people to understand that there were serious risks to urban gas production as well as money to be made from it, no one, not even the city fathers, gave it a thought.
The statistics are not easy for the man on the street to find either. They are compiled by an agency, the Texas Railroad Commission, that boasts that it is in business to facilitate the oil and gas business. Certainly, they wouldn’t want to publicize the risks associated with oil and gas production if they could avoid it. But they are required to compile these statistics for the federal government.
The federal agency in charge is the U. S. Department of Transportation Pipeline Hazardous Materials and Safety Administration (PHMSA). Although the word, “safety” is prominent in the name of this agency, their actual operations indicate that safety does not come first in their mission. What comes first is a five foot shelf of law and regulations that is designed to create an illusion of a “safety first” mentality, while in reality being as non-intrusive and permissive as industry can entice the agency to be.
It is not in industry’s interest to publish statistical data that quantifies the number of disasters per mile of pipeline per year. Such a statistic might impede development of the industry. Consequently, the data are buried in reams of spreadsheets that PHMSA publishes with very little information provided on how to use the data in analyses.
As a result, no one had defined a meaningful way to slice and dice the available raw data by the time I began to consider the problem. My career as a scientist and engineer was spent doing just this sort of data analysis and the mathematical modeling necessary to assess the meaning of such data. At this time, even though I have completed the analysis and modeling—which was a very routine exercise—and have published it through the Pipeline Safety Trust, there is local resistance to the acceptance of my paper reporting the results. The resistance is encouraged and financed by the gas drilling and production industry, of course, as one should expect. Nevertheless, I am committed to getting the word out to all who will listen.
The similarities between plane crash data and pipeline disaster data are instructive. First, thanks to PHMSA, a tremendous database exists, just as the plane crash database is extensive. Second, we can slice and dice the data to answer specific questions, just as can be done with plane crash data. Third, there is an intuitive analogy between the number of crashes per flight hour and the number of pipeline disasters per mile of pipeline. The more hours of flight the more crashes, and the more miles of pipeline the more disasters per unit time.
However, there are some differences—equally instructive. First, while it is nonsensical to dice the plane crash data by geographical area, it is very important to do so with pipeline disaster data. Pipeline disasters occur more frequently in heavily populated areas than in unpopulated areas, and when many miles of pipeline are confined to an urban area it is certain that there will be more disasters in such an area than in an equal number of miles of pipeline in the Alaskan wilderness, for example. Thus, it is no stretch of imagination to expect that when there are 300 miles of gas gathering pipeline running through urban Fort Worth there will be more disasters per mile of pipe per year in Fort Worth than in an equal number of miles of pipe spread out in a rural area.
Another difference between plane crashes and pipeline disasters is that eminent domain is to be used to force siting of pipelines through residential neighborhoods in Fort Worth too close to home foundations for safety—by any calculation. This puts people who live and work near these pipelines at risk of fatality, not by their own choice, as in the case of airliner flights, but by the decisions of others who do not have any risk at all but do have financial incentive to force the risk on others. Plus, these risks are borne daily instead of for a short few hours of flight.
Consequences of accepting the risks
There has been less disagreement about the consequences than there has been about the risks, but it is worth repeating those consequences here anyway.
If we allow the industry to place wells and pipelines according to present ordinances and their interpretation, there will be a pipeline disaster here, on average, every four to six months for the life of the gas field, depending upon the number of miles of gas gathering lines inside the city. That’s a statistical certainty. The time between disasters could be as long as 28 months in one percent of cases, but on average it will happen every four to six months.
What is such a disaster? It is, by definition, a pipeline leak or rupture that causes 1) fire, 2) explosion, 3) at least $50,000 in property damage, 4) mass evacuation, or 5) injury or loss of human life. Pipelines as close to homes as is presently permitted can cause homes with pier and beam foundations to explode. It is typical that pipeline ruptures result in explosions that create large craters and huge fires that burn for hours before the fuel can be cut off.
Such disasters occurring repeatedly in Fort Worth are certain to cause property insurance to increase steeply, as was the case with black mold. Also, the repeated disasters will cause a population decrease as property values sink and the city gains a negative national reputation. In the end, the city will shrink in population and decay. We are looking at a future similar to Detroit, MI or Newark, NJ. This is not an exaggeration, folks.
What you can do
Support Gary Hogan for City Council, District 3, regardless of where you live in Fort Worth. If another yes-man for Mayor Moncrief is elected on May 9 this problem will never be solved.
Vote for Clyde Picht for Mayor. Clyde is against this disastrous gas industry policy.
