Orion Township, MI – A gas explosion that lit up the sky over Oakland County last month comes after 21 other incidents involving Consumers Energy pipelines in Michigan over the past decade, federal records show.
The incidents caused property damage totaling more than $10 million, according to data the utility reported to to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
None of the incidents resulted in injuries or deaths, but environmental advocates say Michigan’s aging network of gas pipelines carries a heightened risk of corrosion or other material failure that could lead to a catastrophic fire or explosion.
Utilities in Michigan are still 20 years away from replacing pipes that may leak, rupture and explode, said James Clift, policy director for the Lansing-based Michigan Environmental Council, an umbrella organization for 70 environmental groups across the state.
You have pipes 65, 75 years or older that must be replaced, Clift said. We have seen an uptick in corrosion being listed at fault.
The Nov. 20 explosion off Brown Road, north of Interstate 75, shot a fireball several hundred feet in the air for two hours and left a 20-foot-deep crater along the pipeline.
There were no injuries or major property damage from the blast, which occurred in a remote area.
The 22-inch diameter pipeline involved in the blast is 65 years old, and Consumers Energy is awaiting the results of tests to determine what caused it to fail. Utility officials said last month a sudden loss of pressure was recorded in the line shortly before it exploded.
A section of the pipe has been removed and sent off for metallurgical testing, said Debra Dodd, a Consumers Energy spokeswoman. It is still under investigation and (we) expect it will still be a few weeks before we can report the cause.
Revisiting Orion blast
Orion Township Supervisor Chris Barnett said he met for two hours Monday with Consumers Energy officials to discuss the pipeline blast.
They say early testing doesn’t show stress fractures and they are ruling out corrosion, although they said it’s possible some environmental aspect may have caused it which is pretty strange, because there is nothing there to impact it, Barnett said.
Barnett said utility officials indicated they have no plans to replace the line, which Dodd confirmed.
We will obviously replace the affected section of the pipeline, but we do plan to place this line back into service once construction is complete, she said. We have no plans to decommission this line.