Pipeline Spring 2014

C A N A D A’ S O I L A N D G A S S A F E T Y M A G A Z I N E

PIPELINE

SPRING 2014

IN REVERSE

Energy board approves pipeline reversal project

DEADLY COMBINATION Train derailment blamed on multiple security failures

DECISIONS, DECISIONS

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I T ’ S W H aT ’ S I N S I D e T H aT R e a L LY Co u N T S

| CONTENTS

PIPELINE Vol. 2, No. 2 SPRING 2014

DEPARTMENTS

4 Random Acts of Testing EDITORIAL

6 9

Cover image supplied by: Industrial Scientific Corporation

IN THE NEWS

BY THE NUMBERS

FEATURES

10 Go East

ENERGY EAST PROJECT Although more than 99 per cent of crude oil reaches its destination safely, there is always room for improvement. What safety measures are in place during the construction of the 4,600 kilometre Energy East Pipeline?

18 Thumbs Up

LINE 9 REVERSAL The National Energy Board has approved Enbridge’s Line 9 reversal project, but critics say that environmental impacts are being sidelined.

20 Off the Rails RAIL SAFETY

The 2013 Lac-Mégantic train derailment in Quebec has spurred calls for reviews of railway operating procedures. What is being done to ensure trains carrying dangerous goods are operating safely?

PRODUCTS

26 To Buy or Rent?

GAS DETECTION

For oil and gas workers looking to purchase or rent a gas detector, factors such as length of use, maintenance needs and unforeseen costs need to be taken into account.

10

26 10

AD INDEX

20

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EDITORIAL |

RANDOM ACTS OF TESTING

W

elcome to the Spring 2014 issue of Pipeline Magazine, a publication dedicated to occupational health and safety in Canada’s oil and gas industry. This issue will take a look at TransCanada’s Energy East Pipeline project and Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline reversal. It will also examine the issue of buying versus renting gas detection equipment.

PIPELINE Vol. 2, No. 2 SPRING 2014 EDITOR

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Hazardous substances

JASON CONTANT jcontant@ohscanada.com JEFF COTTRILL jcottrill@ohscanada.com WILLIAM M. GLENN MARK RYAN

ART DIRECTOR PRINT PRODUCTION MANAGER PRODUCTION MANAGER MARKETING SPECIALIST CIRCULATION MANAGER

PHYLLIS WRIGHT GARY WHITE DIMITRY EPELBAUM BARBARA ADELT

badelt@bizinfogroup.ca

It seems that proponents of random drug and alcohol testing in the oilpatch can’t catch a break these days.

In March, a three-person arbitration board released its long-awaited ruling following a complaint from Local 707A of Unifor on behalf of members at Suncor’s Athabasca operation near Fort McMurray.

In 2012, the company announced the unilateral implementation of its random testing policy.

In the ruling, chair Tom Hodges said that Suncor’s decision to use urine testing was confusing, considering “there are employees who know they are certain to fail urine tests and... in effect, the most serious offenders are finding ways to beat the test.”

Now, I don’t doubt that there are ways, and that was confirmed by a quick Google search. But the testing method is not the point. The real issue at hand revolves around the need for random drug and alcohol testing in the first place.

Supporters of random testing will argue that drug use is more widespread on remote oil and gas sites and that there is a culture of silence to discourage “ratting out” impaired colleagues. Improved safety for all onsite workers — not just the user, but co-workers who have to rely on the impaired worker — is another obvious benefit. These safety benefits are true, but the actual number of impaired workers often doesn’t justify the need for such a wide-sweeping policy.

In relation to random alcohol testing specifically, Hodges wrote in the arbitration ruling that it was an unreasonable exercise of management rights, consider-

Jason Contant Editor jcontant@ohscanada.com 4 | SPRING 2014 PIPELINE

ing that there were only 14 positive alcohol tests over a nine-year period.

Consider that in 2013, the union represented nearly 3,400 workers. The original plan was to test 50 per cent of union members working in safety-sensitive or “specified positions.” As of last year, about 85 per cent of the union’s workforce fell into those two categories.

Besides the wide-ranging nature of the testing, Hodges also found that the policy had been proposed without any time limits for reviewing its effectiveness, was not targeted as narrowly as possible, did not use the least intrusive or more accurate testing measures available and did not contain provisions for communicating with employees about false positive results.

This is not the first time this policy has been debated. Months after it was announced, the Court of Appeal of Alberta granted an injunction to block its implementation until after the arbitration case had been heard.

The Supreme Court of Canada even weighed in on the issue of random alcohol testing last year. The ruling, following Irving Pulp and Paper’s 2006 decision to conduct random, mandatory alcohol testing on workers in “safety sensitive” positions at its mill in Saint John, New Brunswick, placed the onus on employers to first demonstrate that a substance abuse problem exists. Likewise, in the Alberta case, 14 positive alcohol tests in nine years was just not enough.

It would seem that the message for employers is quite simple: tread carefully and first prove that there is a substantial substance abuse problem.

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER (OHS CANADA MAGAZINE) PUBLISHER

PRESIDENT, BUSINESS INFORMATION GROUP

SHEILA HEMSLEY shemsley@ohscanada.com PETER BOXER pboxer@ohscanada.com BRUCE CREIGHTON

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS

DAVID IRETON, Safety Professional, Brampton, Ont. ALLAN JOHNSON, Director of Construction, Hospitality, Oil and Gas, Workers’ Compensation Board of B.C., Vancouver, B.C. JANE LEMKE, Program Manager, OHN Certification Program, Mohawk College, Hamilton, Ont. DON MITCHELL, Safety Consultant, Mississauga, Ont. MICHELE PARENT, National Manager, Risk Management and Health and Wellness, Standard Life, Montreal, Que. TERRY RYAN, Workers’ Compensation and Safety Consultant, TRC Group Inc., Mississauga, Ont. DON SAYERS, Principal Consultant, Don Sayers & Associates, Hanwell, N.B. DAVID SHANE, National Director, Health and Safety, Canada Post Corporation, Ottawa, Ont. HENRY SKJERVEN, President, The Skjerven Cattle Company Ltd., Wynyard, Sask.

PETER STRAHLENDORF, Assistant Professor, School of Environmental Health, Ryerson Polytechnic University, Toronto, Ont. JONATHAN TYSON, Association of Canadian Ergonomists/Association canadienne d’ergonomie, North Bay, Ont.

PIPELINE is the magazine for people who make decisions about health and safety in

Canada’s oil and gas industry. It is designed to keep workers, managers and safety professionals informed on issues in the sector, up to date on new developments and in touch with current thinking in the oh&s community.

WEBSITE: http://www.pipelinemagazine.ca INFORMATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS contained in this publication have been compiled from sources believed to be reliable and to be representative of the best current opinion on the subject. No warranty, guarantee, nor representation is made

by Business Information Group as to the absolute correctness or sufficiency of any representation contained in this publication.

PIPELINE is published periodically by BIG Magazines LP, a division of Glacier BIG Holdings Ltd., a leading Canadian information company with interests in daily and community newspapers and business-to-business information services. Application to mail at ­Periodicals Postage Rates is pending at Niagara Falls, N.Y. 14304. U.S. Postmaster, Office of Publication, send address corrections to: Pipeline, 2424 Niagara Falls Blvd., Niagara Falls, NY 14304-0357.

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Date of issue: SPRING 2014.

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IN THE NEWS |

>> TESTS SHOW TREATED HYDRAULIC FRACTURING WATER SAFE TO DISPOSE Tests show treated hydraulic fracturing wastewater at Atlantic Industrial Services in Debert, Nova Scotia meets guidelines from both the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment and Health Canada.

Nova Scotia Environment Minister Randy Delorey shared the results with the community at an evening meeting in Truro on Jan. 30 and said that while the wastewater was safe for disposal, no action would be taken until the department gives final approval.

“The tests, which were carried out by independent and accredited labs, show that the wastewater poses a minimal risk to the health of Nova Scotians and our environment,” Delorey says in a statement. Most of the wastewater in Debert has been treated to remove naturally occurring radioactive materials, salt and chemicals.

Nova Scotia Environment reports that there are about five million litres of wastewater from hydraulic fracturing in Debert and nearly 20 million litres of wastewater, mixed with rain and melted snow, in two ponds in Kennetcook.

Summary documents and full test results are available at www. novascotia.ca/nse/pollutionprevention/pubs.asp.

>> A LBERTA WORKER FOUND DEAD IN POOL OF SAND AND WATER An oilsands worker was found dead following a workplace incident in northern Alberta.

At about 5:30 a.m. on Jan. 19, the 40-year-old employee of Suncor Energy went out to check on a leak on a pipeline at the site north of Fort McMurray, but didn’t return, says Brookes Merritt, a spokesperson for the occupational health and safety division of Alberta Human Services.

“His Suncor colleagues went looking for him and found him unresponsive in a pool of sand and water,” Merritt says. “EMS was called, and they pronounced him deceased at the scene.”

Suncor says in a statement that after the worker was discovered missing, the company activated its emergency response plan, begun full-scale search operations and notified the RCMP and Alberta Human Services. When he was found a few hours later, the employee’s immediate family members were notified and the company’s human resources team initiated grief counselling for family and co-workers.

No other employees were involved in the incident.

Suncor is working with the appropriate authorities and will complete a full investigation into the cause of the incident, the statement says.

6 | SPRING 2014 PIPELINE

GROUPS PROTEST FRACKING IN THE NORTHWEST TERRITORIES The controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing — injecting chemicals under high pressure into drilled wells to fracture geological formations below and allow for the release of oil and gas — has been thrust into the spotlight again, this time in Canada’s North.

On Feb. 7, three environmental and social action groups in the Northwest Territories (NWT) launched a petition to call on the territorial government to refer any further horizontal hydraulic fracturing — commonly known as “fracking” — to a full environmental assessment, including public hearings. The NWT chapter of the Council of Canadians, Ecology North and Alternatives North created the petition and presented it in the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories.

The petition was developed in response to the Sahtu Land and Water Board and the National Energy Board granting permission to ConocoPhillips Canada, an oil and gas exploration and production company, to use horizontal fracking to drill two test wells outside Norman Wells, without referring the “new and controversial oil extraction technique to environmental assessment,” says a statement from Alternatives North.

Christine Wenman, the coordinator of Ecology North’s Northern Waters Program, argues that the fracking process involves transporting chemicals and polluted wastewater through NWT communities, along highways and on the Mackenzie River. Workers in the territory would also be exposed to these hazardous substances, the petition contends.

The petition can be found online at http://epetition. lant.public-i.tv/epetition_core/community/petition/2614.

It garnered a total of 720 signatures — 468 online and 252 on paper.

| IN THE NEWS

>> OILSANDS EMISSIONS UNDERESTIMATED, RESEARCH SHOWS A new comprehensive modelling assessment of contamination in the Athabasca oilsands region indicates that officially reported emissions of certain hazardous air pollutants have been greatly underestimated.

The results of the assessment, carried out by University of Toronto (UoT) professor Frank Wania and his Ph.D candidate, Abha Parajulee, were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in February.

The team used a model to assess the plausibility of reported emissions of a group of atmospheric pollutants known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), many of which are highly carcinogenic, the university says in a statement.

PAHs are released during the process of extracting petroleum from the oilsands. Environmental impact assessments have so far considered only the PAHs that are released directly into the atmosphere; the risk associated with those direct releases was judged to fall within acceptable regulatory limits.

The model that Parajulee and Wania used took into account other indirect pathways for the release of PAHs that hadn’t been assessed before or were deemed negligible, the statement says.

For instance, they found that evaporation from tailings ponds — lakes of polluted water also created through oilsands processing — could actually introduce more PAHs into the atmosphere than direct emissions.

“Tailings ponds are not the end of the journey for many of the pollutants they contain,” says Parajulee, the lead author of the paper. “Some PAHs are volatile, meaning they escape into the air much more than many people think.”

The pair of researchers modeled only three PAHs, which they believe are representative of others. Still, they say, their model indicates better monitoring data and emissions information are needed to improve understanding of the environmental impact of the oilsands even further.

“Our study implies that PAH concentrations in air, water and food, [which] are estimated as part of environmental impact assessments of oilsands mining operations are very likely too low,” says Wania in the statement. “Therefore, the potential risks to humans and wildlife may also have been underestimated.”

>> ENBRIDGE, TRADE UNIONS SIGN NORTHERN GATEWAY MOU

PROGRAM HELPS CONNECT STUDENTS TO ENERGY SECTOR

Large energy company Enbridge and trade unions representing pipeline construction workers have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) guaranteeing a minimum target of approximately 2,100 person years of union labour employment on the Northern Gateway project.

The National Energy Board’s (NEB) Joint Review Panel for the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway project recommended in December that the federal government approve the proposal, subject to 209 required conditions. Although no completion date has been set, when finished, the twin pipeline will run 1,177 kilometres through British Columbia and Alberta, carrying up to 525,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

The 2,100 person years of labour will be established in detailed project labour agreements, says a release from the Pipe Line Contractors Association of Canada (PLCAC). The MOU ensures that these labour agreements include guarantees for local business opportunities, high-quality workmanship, worker and public safety and environmental protection. “And it complements existing agreements with Aboriginal communities guaranteeing employment and training opportunities,” the PLCAC release says.

The signatories include the Laborers’ International Union of North America, the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE), the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada.

Lionel Railton, acting Canadian regional director of the IUOE, says that he believes that the project will create thousands of wellpaying jobs and training opportunities. Roy Finley, construction director with Teamsters Canada, agrees, adding that “Northern Gateway has been through the most rigorous environmental review of its kind in Canadian history.”

The province of Nova Scotia has teamed up with local energy sector companies to help students gain valuable experience in the industry.

“Programs that connect employers and students in the energy sector encourage innovation and growth in our province,” Nova Scotia Energy Minister Andrew Younger said in a Feb. 17 release. “Employers benefit from a costeffective way to recruit new talent, while students gain valuable skills and work experience to help set them up for success in the highly skilled energy sector workforce.”

The energy department’s training program for students provides small- to medium-sized energy sector businesses with a 50 per cent wage subsidy up to $7.50 per hour for students and recent graduates in Nova Scotia, the release says.

Wage subsidies are available to businesses involved in the onshore or offshore energy sector or renewable energy resources for the summer session, from May 5 to Aug. 29.

“Thanks to this program, we gained an opportunity to work with an enthusiastic, hard-working student and to accelerate our 2014 program planning,” says Andrea Creemer, production engineer at Halifax-based Corridor Resources. “We were so impressed with the calibre of our co-op student that we plan to re-hire him for another work term, based on the value he added to our program.”

Since 2002, 358 students and 118 companies have participated in this program. Between 2010 and 2013, 32 per cent of students were retained by their employers.

For more information, visit http://novascotia.ca/energy/careers-training/energy-training-program.asp.

PIPELINE SPRING 2014 | 7

IN THE NEWS |

>> CONSTRUCTION BEGINS ON NFLD. OFFSHORE MEMORIAL Officials in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador have begun construction of the Offshore Helicopter Accident Memorial, with completion and unveiling of the sculpture anticipated by late summer.

The memorial, to be located at Quidi Vidi Lake in St. John’s, pays tribute to two helicopter crashes that claimed the lives of 23 workers. The first occurred on March 13, 1985, when a Universal helicopter crashed after leaving the Bow Drill oil rig in Placentia Bay, claiming the lives of six offshore workers.

Then, on March 12, 2009, a Cougar Helicopter Inc. Sikorsky S-92A helicopter crashed while en route to the SeaRose floating production, storage and offloading unit in the White Rose oil field and a platform in the Hibernia oilfield. Seventeen of the 18 people aboard died.

Newfoundland and Labrador’s Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation says in a statement that the memorial was chosen through competition by a committee of family members and representatives from the provincial government, industry, labour and the arts community. Its design includes a spiraling stainless steel sculpture at its centre, representing the aerial screw prototype of the first rotary-type flying machine envisioned by Leonardo da Vinci in the late 15th century, the statement says. The names of the 23 victims of both helicopter crashes will be cut into the stainless steel along the spiral of the aerial screw.

The construction of the steel mock-up of the sculpture will be completed within the “coming weeks,” with fabrication of the memorial beginning shortly after, the March 6 statement says.

The provincial government has allocated $400,000 for the estab-

lishment of the memorial, with Newfoundland and Labrador’s offshore oil industry providing an additional $90,000.

>> AUTHORITIES PROBE FATALITY AT SUNCOR OILSANDS SITE Alberta Human Services (AHS) and the RCMP are conducting investigations into the death of a Suncor worker. The employee, 27-year-old Shane Daye from Fort McMurray, died following a workplace injury at its oilsands site on April 20.

Suncor emergency service personnel responded at approximately 11:30 a.m., after the employee was seriously injured while working near Fort McMurray. Daye was transported to the Northern Lights Regional Health Centre in Fort McMurray, where he was pronounced dead.

“An electrician was performing voltage testing in an area containing electric panels when he collapsed,” says Lisa Glover, public affairs officer with the occupational health and safety division of AHS. Daye, an instrumentation tech, had been working for Suncor for seven years, according to his sister, Christie Daye.

Sneh Seetal, media relations manager with Suncor, says the company will cooperate with the oh&s and RCMP investigations, which are ongoing. She adds that Suncor has started its own investigation to determine the root cause of the incident.

“We have mobilized our critical incident stress debriefing to other employees, and we are encouraging our employees to access that service if they feel they need it,” says Seetal.

Christie Daye says that her brother had just earned his journey electrician ticket and was excited about his new skills. “He was an incredibly positive young man, and he will be missed deeply by all who knew him,” she says.

RANDOM DRUG, ALCOHOL TESTING POLICY REJECTED A grievance arbitration board has found that a 2012 random drug and alcohol testing policy, in its present form, is unreasonable for workers at a Suncor Energy site in northern Alberta.

The three-person arbitration board, consisting of chair Tom Hodges as well as employer and union nominees, released its ruling on March 18. Local 707A of Unifor (formerly the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union) filed a grievance on behalf of members at Suncor’s Athabasca oilsands operations near Fort McMurray, after the company announced the unilateral implementation of the random testing policy in 2012, Unifor noted in a statement. In December of that year, the Court of Appeal of Alberta granted an injunction to block the implementation of the random policy until after the arbitration case was heard.

In the ruling, Hodges wrote that the imposition of a random alcohol policy was an unreasonable exercise of management rights. “We find that the 14 positive alcohol tests over a nineyear period in a workforce the size of this employer does not 8 | SPRING 2014 PIPELINE

establish that there is a significant problem or legitimate safety risk,” Hodges wrote. As of July 2013, the union represented 3,383 workers, a number that had more than doubled in the previous decade.

With respect to random drug testing, Hodges said that Suncor’s decision to use urine testing was confusing, considering that this type of test is easier to adulterate. “There are employees who know they are certain to fail urine tests and who are engaged in efforts to adulterate those tests,” he wrote. “In effect, the most serious of offenders are finding ways to beat the test. The 2012 policy would cause intrusions into the privacy of employees beyond what is reasonably necessary.”

Hodges summarized by noting that the 2012 policy had been proposed without any time limits for reviewing its effectiveness, was not targeted as narrowly as possible, did not use the least intrusive or more accurate testing measures available and did not contain provisions for communicating with employees about false positive results.

| BY THE NUMBERS

Drive Safe

According to major energy provider Encana Corporation, motor vehicle incidents, including driving-related fatalities, are one of the most pressing safety issues across the oil and gas industry. In an effort to decrease driving accidents and raise awareness, the company has established its Driver Distraction Practice, which prohibits the use of a cell phone (both handheld and hands-free) while driving either a company vehicle or a personal or rental vehicle on company business. Under the policy, effective Jan. 31, Encana staff are prohibited from answering calls, texting, surfing the web or reading emails. The only exception to using an electronic device while operating a motor vehicle is two-way radios, when essential business-related communication is required.

Driving hazards are well-known in the oil and gas industry. As of Dec. 31, 2013, the Workers’ Compensation Board of Alberta had accepted the following vehiclerelated claims in the mining and petroleum development sector:

$1.79 billion

Record operating earnings for Suncor Energy in the first quarter of 2014.

Source: Suncor Energy Inc.

1 billion

The number of barrels of crude oil produced by drillers in the Bakken shale formation in western North Dakota and eastern Montana.

Source: The Associated Press

Date of claim

Description of incident

Jan. 2013 A 25-year-old oilfield worker died when the company truck he was driving to a worksite collided with another vehicle at a highway intersection.

Feb. 2013 An oilfield driller, 54, died in a motor vehicle accident while travelling to a work site.

Feb. 2013 A former oilfield truck driver, 64, died from atheriosclerosis disease, related to medical complications of major injuries sustained more than 14 years previously in a work-related motor vehicle accident.

June 2013 A 58-year-old field operator died in an all-terrain quad accident during the course of employment.

June 2013 An oilfield worker, 52, was killed in a vehicle accident while en route to the worksite.

Sept. 2013 A 42-year-old oilfield contractor died in an all-terrain vehicle rollover accident while checking lease sites.

Nov. 2013 A 59-year-old former oilfield worker died as a result of medical complications related to a work-related motor-vehicle accident in 1978.

Source of injury Vehicles were the source of injury for 10 per cent of short-term disability, longterm disability and fatal claims in British Columbia’s oil and gas sector between 2008 and 2012: Other, 383, 40%

Metal items, 176, 18%

Working surfaces, 164, 17% Miscellaneous, 61, 7% Bodily Motion, 80, 8%

Vehicles, 97, 10%

639

Length in kilometres of Enbridge’s Line 9B, which the National Energy Board approved for reversal on March 6 Source: Enbridge Inc.

108

Number of lost-time claims related to vehicles in Alberta’s upstream oil and gas industry in 2010.

Source: Work Safe Alberta

360 ˚ Worker killed in pipeline explosion A worker was killed and seven others injured when a pipeline they were repairing in St Catherine, Jamaica suddenly exploded on April 16. According to local police, workers were carrying out repairs to the Tulloch Springs/Rio Cobre pipeline when a rush of water from the line triggered the explosion. The National Water Commission suspended work in the area following the incident.

Source: Jamaica Observer

Source: WorkSafeBC

PIPELINE SPRING 2014 | 9

GoEast

FEATURE | ENERGY EAST

By William M. Glenn

“We look at pipelines as energy highways — similar to railways and truck routes.”

F

o rget Keystone XL. Forget Northern Gateway. Forget Line 9.

This is the big one.

According to documents filed this March with the National Energy Board (NEB), TransCanada’s proposed Energy East Pipeline project will stretch 4,600 kilometres, cross six provinces from Alberta to New Brunswick, cost $12 billion to build, carry up to 1.1 million barrels of crude oil per day and incorporate four new tank farms, 72 pump stations and two major marine terminals.

Once completed, the path of the Energy East Pipeline will be four times longer than

10 | SPRING 2014 PIPELINE

Northern Gateway’s twisting route through the Rockies to the Pacific. It will carry more than three-and-a-half times the oil of the recently approved Line 9 reverse flow project. And it will cost more than twice as much as the contentious Keystone XL extension to Nebraska, making Energy East one of the largest infrastructure projects in Canadian history.

“Energy East will let Canadian [oil] producers expand their market, which will lead to jobs, energy security and government revenues across the country,” says TransCanada spokesperson Davis Sheremata. “There is strong market sup-

t

ENERGY EAST | FEATURE

SAFETY IN NUMBERS

port for a pipeline with approximately 900,000 barrels per day of firm, long-term contracts to transport crude oil from Western Canada to eastern Canadian refineries and export terminals.”

While final route details won’t be settled until the project’s environmental site evaluation and public consultation sessions are concluded, the pipeline will run from a new batching and storage facility at Hardisty (Alta.) southeast to the AlbertaSaskatchewan border and then straight east across the prairies, passing just south of Regina and on past Winnipeg. After crossing the Manitoba-Ontario border,

the route cuts a wide arc around the Great Lakes and through northern Ontario to Mattawa (Ont.) and then veers south, skirting the Ontario-Quebec border to Morrisburg (Ont.) on the St. Lawrence River. It follows the river northeast to a new marine terminal at Cacouna (Que.) on the south shore of the river’s gulf, before cutting back southeast through New Brunswick to the Canaport Energy East marine terminal near St. John on the Bay of Fundy.

During construction, some 2,997 kilometres (km) of existing natural gas pipeline will be converted to shipping crude

Over the last four years, there have been only nine serious injuries reported during the construction, operation or decommissioning of National Energy Board (NEB)-regulated pipelines.

These include three broken legs — one when a worker was struck by a side-boom counterweight and two more when metal objects fell during separate welding incidents — as well as a broken arm. One worker suffered serious burns to his hands and face during a flash fire, and another was burned when gas ignited while a pipe was being welded, information from the NEB notes. Lastly, a worker was overcome by hydrogen sulphide gas, another knocked unconscious by a falling tree and a third seriously injured in a car accident.

Since 2000, there have been a total of six fatalities, half of these in 2011, when a contractor was killed when pinned between two vehicles. Another worker was caught between two pieces of construction equipment, and a third was killed when a lawnmower overturned on an embankment. And in 2013, one sub-contractor was killed in a singlevehicle rollover.

PIPELINE SPRING 2014 | 11

FEATURE | ENERGY EAST

“From a statistical perspective and compared to other industrial activities, we are a very, very safe industry.”

WELL-OILED MACHINE TransCanada has developed a contractor safety management process that requires all contractors to be pre-qualified prior to doing any work for the company.

Prospective contractors are also sent the TransCanada occupational health and safety specifications for prime/general contractors as part of the bid package. These specifications become part of any contract issued. And finally, the contractor must develop a project/ site-specific health and safety program.

“The Energy East safety team takes a collaborative approach when working with its prime contractors to ensure the health and safety of all workers on the project,” says TransCanada spokesperson Davis Sheremata.

“If there are any questions regarding a specific procedure or program, the safety team and the prime contractor will work together to develop a practicable, safe approach to doing the work that will not compromise the health and safety of people.”

12 | SPRING 2014 PIPELINE

oil and 1,518 km of new transmission pipeline will be built, as well as another 100 km of laterals and terminal interconnections. TransCanada expects to proceed with the necessary regulatory applications to construct and operate the pipeline and terminal facilities in mid-2014, Sheremeta says. Energy East is anticipated to be in service by 2018 for deliveries in Quebec and by late-2018 for deliveries to New Brunswick.

TransCanada estimates that 2,300 fulltime jobs will be created during planning and development, including those in environmental and engineering studies, survey services, helicopter support and specialized consulting activities. Construction will require another 7,700 full-time workers — including welders, mechanics, pipefitters, heavy equipment operators, electricians, truckers, safety coordinators and engineers. Once completed, some 1,000 full-time staff will be required to keep the pipeline operating efficiently and safely.

“An analysis conducted by Deloitte & Touche LLP estimates that Energy East will generate $35 billion in additional gross domestic product for Canada during six years of development and construction and over 40 years of operation,” says Sheremata. “Deloitte also found that Energy East will generate an additional $10 billion in tax revenues for all levels of government over the life of the project.”

MAKING THE CASE “We look at pipelines as energy highways — similar to railways and truck routes — that deliver oil and gas from producing regions to consuming regions,” says Philippe Reicher, vice-president of external relations with the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association (CEPA). CEPA members, which include all the country’s major

pipeline companies, transport 97 per cent of Canada’s natural gas and onshore crude oil to markets in Canada and the U.S. “It will take multiple pipeline projects to multiple destinations to move production from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, including the oilsands, to market,” Reicher says. Together with southern and western routes, the eastern pipeline projects are integral parts of Canada’s ongoing infrastructure development.

Because these operations are essentially national in scope, the federal government has taken the lead in their regulation. The design, construction and operation of pipelines must comply with the Onshore Pipeline Regulations (SOR/99294), under the National Energy Board Act, as well as a number of CSA Group standards referenced in the regs. And while employees in most other industries are covered by provincial or territorial occupational health and safety regulations, pipeline workers are subject to the Canada Occupational Health and Safety Regulations (SOR/86-304), under the Canada Labour Code Part II. To track the safety of its members’ operations, CEPA compiles key performance data on “significant failure incidents,” defined as spills of more than 50 (U.S.) barrels of product, spontaneous fires, or accidents involving serious injury or death. “Over the last 10 years, the industry has been averaging just 3.5 significant failure incidents a year, and that number is going down,” says Reicher.

“Last year, there were none reported by any of our member companies.”

Occupational hazards, including longdistance driving, confined space entry, welding, working with heavy equipment, flash fires and spill response, might be expected to exact a serious toll every year.

FEATURE | ENERGY EAST

STEP BY STEP According to a detailed summary of its pipeline integrity program prepared for Pipeline Magazine, TransCanada says it has invested an average of $900 million on proactive inspection and maintenance programs over the past three years. In addition, Energy East will take several steps to minimize the chances of a pipeline leak and to detect any leaks quickly: • TransCanada inspectors will be present at the mills to ensure that the pipe is manufactured and coated according to company standards and federal regulations; • Proven external corrosion prevention technology will be implemented, including a fusion bonded epoxy coating and cathodic protection system; • Each weld made during pipeline construction will be examined utilizing radiographic or ultrasonic technology to ensure integrity; • Before the pipeline is put into service, its integrity will be pressured tested at a much higher than normal operating pressure; • Periodic internal cleaning inspections and random product sampling will be undertaken to mitigate internal corrosion. Chemical corrosion inhibitors, biocides, corrosion coupons or probes will be used as necessary; • High-resolution inline inspection tools will be used during operations to detect internal and external defects; • A SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system in the company’s operations control centre will monitor pipeline flow, pressure, temperature and equipment status on a continuous basis; and • The pipeline system is designed to shut down and/or isolate sections of the pipeline using valves that can be remotely activated and controlled by the control centre.

Other valves in the pipeline system (called check valves) will close on reverse pressure.

14 | SPRING 2014 PIPELINE

“But from a statistical perspective and compared to other industrial activities, we are a very, very safe industry,” says Reicher.

Despite the encouraging numbers, CEPA’s members are always looking to improve performance. “Pipeline companies are developing and adopting new technologies and sharing best practices in a collaborative effort to achieve zero incidents,” says Reicher. For example, in November 2013, CEPA members signed a Mutual Emergency Assistance Agreement, replacing a former ad hoc arrangement with a formal commitment to share resources, equipment and personnel in the event of a spill or other emergency.

The agreement removes any legal barriers that can sometimes delay emergency response efforts.

SAFETY FIRST Primary responsibility for the regulation of the pipeline sector — from approvals to operations to safety — falls to the National Energy Board. “The NEB is an independent regulator, expert tribunal and quasijudicial body with the capacity and expertise to look at projects and determine whether they are in the public interest and should go forward,” says board spokesperson Whitney Punchak. “We are also a life-cycle regulator. We regulate energy projects while they are still on the drawing board, while they are under construction and in operation and until they are eventually abandoned.”

The energy board is also responsible for ensuring companies meet federal regulations related to the safety of employees, the public and the environment.

According to section 47 of the Onshore Pipeline Regulations, a company must “develop, implement and maintain a safety management program that anticipates, prevents, manages and mitigates potentially dangerous conditions [during] construction, operation, maintenance, abandonment and emergency situations.” This requires systematic, comprehensive and proactive processes to identify hazards, train workers, communicate and document risks and evaluate progress.

Through a long-standing agreement with Employment and Social Development Canada, a number of NEB staff members have been designated as health and safety officers under the Canada Labour Code

and/or safety officers under the Canada Oil and Gas Operations Act, which covers production and drilling in Northern Canada. These staff are charged with overseeing the health and safety of pipeline field personnel during construction site and facility inspections.

“Our number one priority is public and environmental safety,” says Punchak, “and that definitely includes worker safety. For any [new project] application, we look at the company’s management system, how they respond to emergency situations and whether their safety and compliance methods are on a par with our standards.

Any discrepancies will be noted immediately and must be corrected. ” AUDITING SAFETY Each major pipeline company is also subject to a comprehensive audit — in addition to all the inspections, emergency response tests and face-to-face meetings that the NEB regularly conducts — every five years. TransCanada was the subject last year; Enbridge is under the microscope this year.

It’s a complex undertaking. “I have anywhere between 85 and 90 experts — inspectors, investigators auditors, engineers and safety officers — working on these major audits,” estimates Patrick Smyth, business leader of operations for the NEB and accountable for the audit process. Each audit examines the six primary components of a company’s management system: safety; environmental protection; integrity; pipeline crossings and public awareness; emergency management; and security.

“We look at the company’s documentation on, for example, its hazard identification program, review some sample reports and determine if there are any problems,” says Smyth. “Then we go out in the field to validate what’s really happening and ensure that the inspections and assessments are being done, the safety meetings and toolbox chats are being held.”

At the end of each inspection, there is a “close-out” meeting to discuss any concerns, so that the company has a chance to close that compliance gap immediately, Smyth says. And if the NEB inspectors or officers discover an immediate or imminent threat to human health or the environment, they have an array of regulatory

ENERGY EAST | FEATURE

“ While trains spill more often, pipelines spill larger volumes.” tools at their disposal and can require a company to perform tests, undertake corrective measures or even suspend activities at a worksite until the hazardous or detrimental situation has been remedied.

In February 2014, the NEB released the audit results of TransCanada’s Integrity Management Program, which sets out the tools, technologies and actions used to ensure its pipelines are safe and remain that way over time. The audit showed that while the company identified the majority of the hazards and risks, including the most significant ones, it was “non-compliant” in four areas: hazard identification, risk assessment and control; operational control in upset or abnormal operating conditions; inspection, measurement and monitoring;

and management review. Once the final audit was posted on the NEB website, the company had 30 days to draft and submit a corrective plan that laid out the actions it would take, and the timing of those actions, to correct any deficiencies.

It’s a cooperative process designed to improve safety. “I think it’s safe to say that our assessment has not found any immediate hazards that must be addressed,” says Smyth. “A program may be fairly sophisticated but not entirely implemented, so our staff will follow up on all the deadlines in the corrective plan to ensure all deficiencies are completely corrected.”

The NEB audits on the remaining components of TransCanada’s management plan, including its occupational

PIPELINE SPRING 2014 | 15

FEATURE | ENERGY EAST

“The reality is that no method of transporting crude will ever be 100 per cent safe.” health and safety program, had not been released at press time.

THE NEXT STAGE TransCanada is expected to file its comprehensive application for the Energy East project, together with the supporting studies and other evidence about the project’s effects on the environment and public safety, sometime in the third quarter of 2014. The NEB will then review the application for completeness and, if satisfied, issue a hearing order.

That’s when the clock starts ticking.

According to the service standards in the National Energy Board Act, once a proponent’s application has been judged complete, the NEB has 15 months to undertake its own assessment, hold any hearings, look at the information submitted by proponents, intervenors or other commenters and then prepare and issue its final decision, along with any conditions it chooses to add. And there will be a hearing; under the act, the NEB must conduct a public hearing for any project involving more than 40 kilometres of pipeline.

“The assessment is undertaken by a team of NEB staff experts, including engineers, economists and environmental scientists,” says Punchak. “But until we get the formal application, we won’t know how it will all play out. Where and how the hearings will be conducted is still to be determined.” In the meantime, the NEB will be conducting online technologybased info sessions, undertaking Aboriginal engagement and providing both online and one-on-one support with the public and other stakeholders on the approval process.

Along with the hearing order, the NEB will also release its application for intervenors. Those people who may be directly affected by the project and/or have relevant information to contribute can take part, either as full-fledged intervenors or by simply submitting a letter of content. It 16 | SPRING 2014 PIPELINE

appears there will be no shortage of landowners, environmental groups, First Nations, industry associations, provincial agencies and municipalities lining up to fill out those application forms.

DEVIL’S IN THE DETAILS It may be too early to tell if TransCanada’s safety plans are adequate. “Everything’s in the details, and we haven’t seen the company’s detailed plans for Energy East yet,” says Fred Wilson, director of strategic planning for Unifor. “However, there’s not a lot to be desired in the pipeline sector’s safety record. I don’t know whether accidents are becoming more frequent or we are just hearing more about them these days, but we do know that environmental releases and worker safety are closely related,” he argues.

Unifor represents approximately 11,900 Canadian petroleum workers, both upstream — in the oilsands or working offshore — and downstream in the refineries, gas plants and petrochemical facilities. “Safety is regulated in the pipeline sector, but those regulations are not always enforced,” Wilson contends.

“Pipeline safety issues require heightened vigilance. There has got to be zero tolerance for anything that can impact pipeline integrity.”

While Unifor will be involved in the upcoming Energy East approval process, the union has not yet taken a firm position — either for or against — the project.

That will depend, in part, on whether the pipeline is designed to meet the country’s sustainable energy security needs by delivering crude to Canadian refineries for processing or will be used primarily to export Alberta bitumen to foreign markets. “We will have to put the economic and environmental rationale under a critical lens before we make our decision,” says Wilson.

In terms of the environmental, public health and spill risks they pose, Enbridge’s

ENERGY EAST | FEATURE

Line 9 and TransCanada’s Energy East project are absolutely equivalent, says Adam Scott, climate and energy program manager with Environmental Defence.

Both companies are converting gas pipelines to carry diluted bitumen (or dilbit) east for the first time. And both projects could cause a major spill into one of the dozens of waterways they cross, he says.

“Industry is not always truthful about their spill cleanup capabilities,” charges Scott. “In many cases, they do not recover more than a tiny fraction of the oil spilled.

The rest contaminates soils, sediments and, in the case of dilbit, sinks to the bottom of rivers, resulting in long-term environmental and human exposure to toxic chemicals,” he says.

In a written response to Pipeline Magazine, TransCanada says it will take “special precautions to significantly reduce the risk of a pipeline rupture and spill in the vicinity of a water crossing.” This could include using thicker-walled pipe and installing shut-off valves on both sides of the crossing to quickly stop the flow of oil if instruments detect a drop in pipeline pressure (indicating a potential leak).

EXPLOSIVE RISKS A major spill or release could also threaten the health of first responders. “Some of the diluents in dilbit, such as benzene, are highly volatile and evaporate almost instantly on exposure to air,” says Scott.

“And despite industry studies, there is also anecdotal evidence that dilbit is more corrosive.” The eastern pipelines could also carry Bakken shale oil — the kind that exploded during the LacMégantic train wreck in July 2013. “It has a flammability comparable to gasoline and poses a very high fire and explosion risk,” says Scott.

For its part, the Energy East Pipeline will be designed to transport a variety of crude types, including light crude, synthetic crude, heavy crude and dilbit.

“Diluted bitumen has similar characteristics and behaves the same way as conventional crude oils, which initially floats in water,” TransCanada says. However, crude oil does have the potential to sink or become submerged if allowed to “weather”

and in turbulent water, “making swift response to a spill in water necessary.”

But it’s not just about spills and fires.

“Those in the oil industry need to understand that a significant amount of the opposition to these pipelines has to do with climate change. A project like Energy East will have a massive impact on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions,” says Scott. “We are not trying to attack the people working to make the shipping infrastructure safer, but there are bigger issues in play here.”

A recent report by The Pembina Institute says that the Energy East pipeline will facilitate the expansion of production in the oilsands, generating an estimated 32 million tonnes of GHG, equivalent to the tailpipe emissions produced by seven million cars. “Even at today’s production levels, the oilsands sector has significant environmental impacts,” says Clare Demerse, director of federal policy for the institute. “The Energy East pipeline would provide oilsands companies with significant new access to global oil markets,” allowing them to increase production levels and further increasing GHG emissions.

Environmental groups do not buy the argument that stopping the pipeline would force more oil into rail cars, with all the risks that may involve. “Analysts comparing the spill risk of pipelines to trains have typically concluded that while trains spill more often, pipelines spill larger volumes,” says Demerse. “It’s clear that the regulations governing crude-byrail in Canada need to be strengthened.

However, the reality is that no method of transporting crude will ever be 100 per cent safe. The safest choice of all — both for communities and the world’s climate — is to use less oil.”

This pipeline infrastructure is essential to the pace and scale of the oilsands expansion that the energy industry plans, says Scott. “The industry has already maxed out the rail transport capacity and new tanker cars are on backorder for years. If Energy East doesn’t go through, the planned oilsands production expansion doesn’t go through.” PL William M. Glenn is a writer in Toronto.

Follow us on Twitter @PipelineOHS PIPELINE SPRING 2014 | 17

FEATURE | LINE 9 REVERSAL

THUMBS

UP

By Jeff Cottrill and William M. Glenn

Lickers points out that the pipeline was already an environmental threat, one that “directly jeopardizes the health of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River.”

>>>> 18 | SPRING 2014 PIPELINE

C

algary-based energy corporation Enbridge Inc. is moving ahead with its pipeline reversal project, now that the National Energy Board (NEB) has approved the project with a list of conditions.

The NEB announced its approval of the Line 9B flow reversal and Line 9 capacity expansion project on March 6. Enbridge plans to reverse the flow direction of a 639-kilometre section of the Line 9 pipeline, running between North Westover, Ontario and Montreal, from westbound to eastbound. The NEB approved the first phase of the initiative — the reversal of the 246-kilometre Line 9A between Sarnia and North Westover — in July 2012.

For the latest project, the company wants to expand the entire pipeline’s capacity from 240,000 to 300,000 barrels per day of diluted bitumen. As part of the company’s Eastern Canadian Refinery

Access Initiative, the line will deliver these barrels of crude oil from Western Canada and the U.S. Bakken region to refineries in Ontario and Quebec.

Enbridge spokesperson Graham White says that the corporation’s goal is to provide Canadian crude to Quebec refineries that request it. “It will support the economy of the region and will also get eastern Canada off of the foreign oil that they currently use,” he explains.

The NEB’s green light followed months of public debate over the project’s potential environmental dangers. Last August, a scathing report by U.S. research corporation Accufacts Inc. pointed out numerous safety risks, including stress corrosion cracks on the line that were likely to rupture and an inadequate emergency response. Three months later, the NEB held public forums in Toronto and Montreal to discuss the issue.

LINE 9 REVERSAL | FEATURE

>>>>

“ The conditions are stringent, but we feel that they’re achievable,” says White, adding that the company is in the process of reviewing the conditions and the scope of work involved.

The day after the NEB announced its approval, a coalition of activist groups protested the board’s approval with a demonstration and press conference at Queen’s Park, Ontario’s legislature in Toronto.

“It was an emergency response, because the National Energy Board gave us basically just under 48 hours of confirmation of when they were going to release their decision,” contends Amanda Lickers, a representative with Rising Tide Toronto (RTT), about the March 7 rally. An environmental grassroots collective, RTT has been especially vocal in its opposition to the Enbridge plan.

Lickers points out that the pipeline was already an environmental threat, one that “directly jeopardizes the health of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River” and that of Canada’s two most densely populated urban centres. “There’s no way that we can survive as people without

water. There is no economic benefit.”

If the pipeline leaks or bursts, she adds, the result could be catastrophic for municipalities across Ontario, including Toronto. “We’re going to be left cleaning up that spill. People need to realize that.”

White maintains that Enbridge has kept safety concerns in mind. “Whatever risks there may be are well planned for and well mitigated by even our existing extensive emergency response and integrity programs,” he says.

The NEB has detailed its approval in a 158-page report, with an appendix outlining 30 conditions that Enbridge must meet. Many of these conditions address issues that opponents have brought up, including reported cracks in the pipeline, transparency of information and the adequacy of Enbridge’s leak detection and emergency response measures. Enbridge also has to develop an environmental protection plan, but will not be required to conduct hydrostatic testing to ensure the integrity of the existing sections of pipeline.

“The conditions are stringent, but we feel that they’re achievable,” says White, adding that the company is in the process of reviewing the conditions and the scope of work involved.

Lickers is skeptical. “The NEB told Enbridge to do the things it hasn’t done so far,” she says, charging that Enbridge’s pipelines failed safety tests and the company has not improved its record.

White says that Enbridge had started pulling together its oh&s plan for the Line 9 project well before the equipment was ordered and the contracts were awarded.

“The essence of the program lies in the project-specific safety management plan, which is based on the principles found in Enbridge’s health and safety management system,” White says.

Frontline staff, construction contractors and tradespeople completed detailed

assessments to identify work hazards and the precautions that needed to be in place to prevent a safety incident. Coordinating safety concerns among dozens of contractors, subcontractors and tradespeople does take some detailed planning.

“We have a set frequency of safetyfocused contractor management meetings and regular, frequent ‘all-hands’ safety meetings,” says White. Tradespeople are encouraged to identify safety concerns and bring them to the attention of their supervisors and Enbridge representatives at daily toolbox talk meetings or through hazard ID or safety observation programs.

“Enbridge’s commitment to safety has taken shape in a health and safety management system that has produced safety performance metrics that are 50 per cent lower than the industry average,” says White.

RTT released its own Line 9 report, Not Worth the Risk, in February. The report documents extensive research into Line 9’s environmental hazards and weighs its apparent economic benefits against the health and safety risks; it also deals with First Nations treaty violations.

Lickers describes RTT’s report as a community response debunking Enbridge’s claims. “It’s a combination of intervenors and community members from all across the line,” she said. “It’s basically a full resource as to why this pipeline should never have been approved and needs to be decommissioned and checked out.”

The NEB decision is available in PDF format at https://docs.neb-one.gc.ca/ fetch_e.asp?Id=A59170. Not Worth the Risk is available at http://risingtidetoronto.noblogs.org/files/2014/02/NEB_ report_final.pdf. PL Jeff Cottrill is the editorial assistant of OHS Canada Magazine; William M. Glenn is a writer in Toronto.

Follow us on Twitter @PipelineOHS PIPELINE SPRING 2014 | 19

FEATURE | RAIL SAFETY

By Jeff Cottrill

It was Canada’s worst rail disaster in more than a century. In the early morning hours of July 6, 2013, a 72-car freight train derailed and exploded in Lac-Mégantic, a small town in southern Quebec with a population of about 6,000. The train, owned by American company Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA), had been carrying petroleum crude oil from North Dakota towards the Irving Oil refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick.

At about 12:56 a.m., the unattended train broke loose and began to roll downhill towards Lac-Mégantic before derailing on a sharp curve. An estimated 47 people were killed, with at least 30 buildings destroyed.

J.A. Ash,

“Was it a reasonable measure for Transport Canada to allow MMA to operate a train like that… with one engineer?”

20 | SPRING 2014 PIPELINE

Toronto-based head of the dangerous goods team with the Railway Association of Canada (RAC) in Ottawa, witnessed much of the aftermath while visiting Lac-Mégantic for 15 days following the disaster. “I’ve been in the railway business for over 35 years, and I’ve been responding to dangerous goods incidents for 25 years,” Ash says. “I’ve never seen one with that many fatalities.”

Quebec’s environment department estimated that of the 7.6 million litres of crude oil that the train had been carrying, nearly six million litres had spilled or burned.

Some crude contaminated the local sewer system, while 100,000 litres spilled into the

nearby Chaudière River and other types of oil landed as far as 120 kilometres away.

Raynald Marchand, general manager of the Canada Safety Council in Ottawa, believes that the disaster was due to a combination of security failures. Among the details that have come out: the cargo was improperly labelled; the train employed only one crew member — the locomotive engineer; the engineer retired to a hotel for the night, leaving the train unattended on a hill in nearby Nantes with the engine running; and an insufficient amount of hand brakes were applied during the stop.

“And when that failed,” Marchand says in reference to the train’s security, “the inevitable came along.”

RAIL SAFETY | FEATURE

PACKING HEAT While the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is still investigating the incident, it has already issued several safety advisory letters. As early as July 19, 2013, the TSB sent a letter to Transport Canada (TC) asking that the government review railway operating procedures to ensure that trains carrying dangerous goods were not left unattended on main tracks. Last September, the TSB sent letters to TC and the United States Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, asking them to review how suppliers documented the hazardous qualities of the goods they moved.

The oil on the Lac-Mégantic train was documented as being far less dangerous than it actually was. Tests revealed that the crude had been a Packing Group II product, meaning that it had an initial boiling point above 35°C at an absolute pressure of 101.3 kilopascals and a flash point lower than 23°C — equivalent to the danger of gasoline. Nonetheless, it was labelled as Packing Group III, a classification for less

flammable material. “The lower flash point of the crude oil explains in part why it ignited so quickly,” the TSB concluded in a September 2013 statement.

The TSB also notes that a broken piston in the train’s engine may have caused unburned fuel to spill into the engine, which would have created sparks and smoke that could have triggered the initial fire less than 90 minutes earlier.

Before the derailment in Lac-Mégantic, the train had caught fire during the stop in Nantes. The fire was extinguished at around midnight — about 10 minutes after it had been reported to the rail traffic controller.

Further investigation suggests that the applied force of the hand brakes — backups for the air brakes — was insufficient for a train parked on a slope on a 1.2 per cent descent, causing the locomotive to roll down towards Lac-Mégantic. According to safety guidelines, the attendant should have activated 40 per cent of the train’s hand brakes on five locomotives and 11 tank cars.

“ Pipeline transport is statistically safer than rail shipment.”

PIPELINE SPRING 2014 | 21

FEATURE | RAIL SAFETY In Canada, the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act regulates the shipment of oil and other flammable materials. Under the act, TC is expected to inspect rail companies on a regular basis.

Other requirements include, among others, proper documentation and sufficient reporting and training. Aside from safety requirements and standards, the act also deals with emergency response plans, means of containment and compliance monitoring.

Federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt responded to the derailment last October by ordering all importers to conduct hazard classification tests on any petroleum crude oils or flammable liquids that had not undergone such testing since July 7. She also issued directives for the rail industry with new rules regarding supervision, security and brake use on trains carrying dangerous goods. “We are also examining whether we need further measures to strengthen rail safety and the transportation of dangerous goods,” Raitt adds.

FULL SPEED AHEAD But former federal Opposition Transport Critic Olivia Chow is not satisfied with the government’s efforts to keep people safe from rail accidents. “Transport Canada lacks a consistent approach to planning and implementing compliance activities to make sure railways are following regulations,” Chow contends. “Worse still, where problems were discovered, 73 per cent of the time, Transport Canada did not follow up to see if the problems were fixed,” she claims.

Statistics Canada notes that the amount of crude oil travelling on Canadian railways has increased enormously over the past few years. About 68,000 carloads of fuel oils and crude petroleum were transported by rail in Canada in 2011; that figure leaped to 115,000 carloads in 2012.

In 2013, Canadian railways moved 160,000 carloads. There were 118 rail accidents involving dangerous goods in 2011 and 2012 each — down from a fiveyear average of 147, the TSB reports.

“The federal government has not adapted its safety programs to deal with this rapid change in our transportation system,” argues Chow. “We know the government is not doing enough, because 22 | SPRING 2014 PIPELINE

they are cutting transport regulatory oversight by $6.7 million.”

Nonetheless, Raitt maintains that “Transport Canada is moving forward to further enhance the safety of railway operations and dangerous goods transportation,” she says.

REGULATION DERAILED? One of the most contentious responses to the Lac-Mégantic accident is an October 2013 report by Bruce Campbell, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in Ottawa. Campbell’s report, The Lac-Mégantic Disaster: Where Does the Buck Stop?, charges that government deregulation has made the rail industry unsafe.

Rail companies have jumped to meet the demand for oil transportation due to the shortage of pipelines, but have been trusted to regulate themselves on safety — and have failed to do so because the bottom line has taken higher priority, the report says. In fact, it charges that MMA — an independent entity in the United States that already had a poor safety record — took advantage of lax Canadian regulations.

“Ultimately, it’s a flawed regulatory regime and it’s the self-regulation aspect to it that is the root cause of it,” says Campbell. “If we’re going to really address the problem, what I would call for, fundamentally, is for Transport Canada to take back regulatory authority that it has ceded to the corporations.”

It is a pattern that Campbell claims has been going on for about 25 years. Most significantly, changes to the Railway Safety Act in 2001 allowed rail companies to implement their own standards, or safety management systems. Then in 2012, the Cabinet Directive on Regulatory Management (CDRM) added new barriers against federal regulation. According to the CDRM, departments and agencies must repeal one regulation for every new one that causes “red tape,” or administrative burdens on corporations. In addition, regulations are expected to accomplish their objectives while imposing the lowest possible costs to businesses.

As a result, some companies have been cutting corners to reduce costs at the expense of safety. Before the Lac-Mégantic incident, crews on hazardous trains were

RAIL SAFETY | FEATURE

reduced, insufficient tank cars were used to transport crude and brake rules were left vague, Campbell charges. The government’s Transportation of Dangerous Goods Directorate is supplying 35 railway safety inspectors, or one for every 4,000 tank carloads of oil moved by rail each year. The department’s budget of $13 million is inadequate for the massive increase in crude transported via rail over the past five years — an increase from close to zero to nearly 275,000 barrels per day, Campbell’s report notes.

“Was it a reasonable measure for Transport Canada to allow MMA to operate a train like that, one of these mega oil trains with, in this case, 72 cars and tonnes of product, with one engineer? Or to allow it to park on the main track, unlocked and unattended?” Campbell asks. “Until Lac-Mégantic, they were allowed to do that.”

As the Toronto-based director of the rail division at Unifor, Brian Stevens agrees that this hands-off approach poses a security problem. “We leave it to the employers or the railways themselves to regulate, and they’ll create a nice report on an annual basis and send it off to the regulators and say, ‘Hey, listen, we’re doing our job.’”

Stevens argues that railway safety inspectors — whose role is to monitor

and promote regulatory compliance in all aspects of the rail industry through audits and inspections, as well as provide education and safety awareness — are not working as effectively as possible.

“The federal government said there are as many inspectors today as there were 10 years ago,” he notes. “But it seems like they’re spending more time dealing with regulatory submissions and paperwork, as opposed to doing blitzes out in the field.

And they’re relying on the good graces of the railways themselves to do what they say they’re supposed to be doing.”

A safety inspector with Canadian Pacific, who does not want to be identified, affirms TC’s shortage of safety inspectors. “You only have two inspectors in all of Ontario,” he says, noting that the government says that this is due to financial constraints. “I know that for a fact, because I applied there a few years back and they told us outright that the reason why they didn’t hire anybody on is because there’s a shortage of funds.” He claims TC inspectors have “been kicked off properties for going and doing their jobs.”

The vast majority of oil shipments reach their destinations without incident.

WEAR AND TEAR One problem that Campbell highlights in his report is the inadequacy of tanker cars being used to carry bitumen. It has been PIPELINE SPRING 2014 | 23

FEATURE | RAIL SAFETY known since the early 1990s that the CTC-111A car, also known as DOT-111 in the United States — an all-purpose car with a single steel shell — has a tendency to puncture during derailments.

Although the United States National Transportation Safety Board introduced CTC-111A design modifications in October 2011, including thicker heads and shells, normalized steel, head shields halfan-inch thick and top-fitting protection, 80 per cent of Canada’s tanker fleet still consists of older CTC-111A cars. All of the carriers in the train that derailed in LacMégantic were CTC-111A cars.

“Transport Canada was really quite complacent about the threat,” Campbell argues, citing internal TC memos. “We’re learning that the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Directorate didn’t consider oil to be a dangerous good.” He adds that there are no regulations in place to upgrade any of the older tank cars. “The life of those cars is about 40 years, so at the current rate, it’s going to take ages for that fleet to be replaced.”

Stevens points out that an appropriate tank car, which would have the capacity to handle such volatile fuel, has not yet been constructed. “The industry knows that, the shippers know that, the regulators know that, the lawmakers know that, but no one’s pushing the manufacturers to make sure we get enough cars,” Stevens charges.

More recently, CTC-111A cars were involved in another accident in New Brunswick. On Jan. 7, a train carrying crude oil and liquefied petroleum gas to Saint John derailed in Plaster Rock, causing a fire and forcing an evacuation of 150 nearby residents. A second train also derailed in New Brunswick later that month.

PIPELINE VS. RAIL Another view is that rail simply is not a safe way to ship crude. A recent study by The Fraser Institute, entitled Intermodal Safety in the Transport of Oil, suggests that accidents like the Lac-Mégantic derailment are less likely when crude is moved via pipeline. The study examined oil spills in North America over the past 20 years and concluded that pipeline transport is statistically safer than rail shipment, when one takes into account the average num24 | SPRING 2014 PIPELINE

ber of incidents and injuries per billion tonnes of petroleum shipped per mile each year, as well as the number of fatalities for each mode.

“There’s no risk-free option involved with regard to moving goods,” says Dr. Kenneth Green, the institute’s senior director of natural resources in Calgary, who co-wrote the study with Diana FurchtgottRoth of the Manhattan Institute. “But some are riskier than others.”

Dr. Green concedes that the vast majority of oil shipments reach their destinations without incident, regardless of method. But he stresses that with pipelines, “you move the product without moving the container, whereas for trains, you have many moving containers that are large, heavy and dangerous.”

Rail transport, Dr. Green says, has a far greater range for human error. “Rail lines, by intent, connect up population centres, which means your exposure to people is higher,” he explains. “The train cars carrying bitumen on the rails with other goods interacts with other surface transport, so you have much more opportunity for accidents.”

The RAC counters that 99.997 per cent of dangerous goods shipped by rail reach their destinations without any safety problems. But what about the other 0.003 per cent that do not? “It’s a valid question,” Ash admits.

Ash maintains that the industry took the Lac-Mégantic incident “personally, because we do work hard in the railway industry to ensure everything is running safely. We work hard with the regulators as far as developing regulations,” he says. “We work hard with the car builders to make these tank cars. We work hard with our employees as far as doing safety audits and inspections and training. And not only that, we work with the first responders.”

MUNICIPAL MATTERS Aside from affecting the companies responsible for derailments of locomotives carrying dangerous goods, these accidents can have catastrophic effects on industries in surrounding communities as well. “In addition to the tragic loss of life, homes and businesses,” Chow says, “agricultural land becomes unusable, drinking water sources are threatened, regional tourism is affected and impor-

RAIL SAFETY | FEATURE tant rail supply chains are interrupted. All of these problems can be avoided when we have an effective, strong regulatory process in place that prevents disasters before they occur.”

Chow adds that municipalities need to be pre-warned of the extent and frequency of dangerous goods passing through their borders. “We need to ensure that all rail companies have adequate insurance, so that when tragedies do arise, those who are directly affected have the appropriate compensation.”

The government is starting to address these issues. On Nov. 20, 2013, Raitt introduced a protective directive decreeing that everyone who transports dangerous goods by rail must disclose information to the municipalities through which they travel.

All transporters of dangerous goods must provide yearly aggregate information on the nature and volume of the transported goods to the designated emergency planning officials of the relevant municipalities and also provide TC with full contact information of those who deal with emergency planning officials, via the Canadian Transport Emergency Centre.

MAKING IT BETTER Apart from beefing up regulations on the transportation of dangerous goods, how else can the next Lac-Mégantic tragedy be averted?

Marchand suggests investing in technology, such as Positive Train Control (PTC), aimed at preventing accidents rather than responding to them after they occur. The PTC system monitors and controls train movement to avoid collisions, enforce speed restrictions and protect rail workers at wayside locations — “particularly for passenger trains, where the speed of the track is enforced automatically if the conductor doesn’t react to the requirement for that speed,” he says.

Marchand also stresses regular maintenance as an important factor in rail safety, especially when it comes to keeping tracks and brakes in a good state of repair. “The safety system is to avoid the crash in the first place. That’s where the railway needs to go,” he says.

Another possible solution is to upgrade the rail system itself. “The rail infrastructure in some cases is old and degraded,”

says Dr. Green. “Some of the older cars are more prone to accidents and derailing and might need to be upgraded.”

Chow says that rail safety will be possible only if the industry is willing to be subject to external regulations and, in cooperation with the government, make safety a top priority. “Transport Canada needs to show transparency and disclose who they are inspecting, how often and how they will make sure that companies are complying with laws,” says Chow, adding that the government should conduct a review to determine how to improve the system of self-regulation.

“Victims and taxpayers should not be left with the bill when companies cut corners to drive up profits,” she charges. PL Follow us on Twitter @PipelineOHS

SAFETY FIRST? The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) announced in Ottawa on Jan. 23 three recommendations for rail companies shipping dangerous goods, which the TSB, in partnership with the National Transportation Safety Board in the United States, wants to see put into effect immediately: • Tougher standards for Class 111 tank cars, including older ones: All containers carrying flammable liquids must have enhanced protection, and the gradual phase-out of unprotected older cars is not good enough; • Better route planning for dangerous goods: Railways must choose routes more carefully, noting what lies along the current routes as well as alternate, less risky routes; and • Emergency response assistance plans: Resources must always be in place to minimize the consequences of a spill of dangerous goods and/ or a fire.

This follows an emergency directive issued by Transport Minister Lisa Raitt on Oct. 22, 2013 to Canadian railway companies in response to the Lac-Mégantic derailment. This directive requires the following measures to be taken: • A minimum of two qualified employees must operate every train carrying dangerous goods; • Operators must never leave a train with dangerous goods unattended on a main track; • All cars carrying dangerous goods must be secured against unauthorized entry; • Companies must remove directional controls from unattended trains; and • Brakes must be applied sufficiently and properly on all locomotives left unattended.

On April 23, Raitt announced that Transport Canada would require shippers to develop emergency response assistance plans for single tank cars carrying crude oil, gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel or ethanol. Transport Canada would also require rail companies to immediately phase out about 5,000 tanks cars that do not have continuous bottom reinforcement for crash resistance.

PIPELINE SPRING 2014 | 25

PRODUCTS | GAS DETECTION

BUY

TO

RENT? OR

F

By Jason Contant

or all of life’s big decisions — a car, a house — there is always the question of buying versus renting. On a much smaller scale, workers who require gas detectors for their jobs also have this option to consider.

As with any major purchase, employers should carefully weigh the pros and cons for their industries and specific needs. Each option comes with a variety of upfront and unanticipated costs, depending on length of use, maintenance needs and calibration requirements, among other factors.

26 | SPRING 2014 PIPELINE

“A common error that people make when making this decision is that they consider the upfront costs while ignoring the long-term, unforeseen costs — the portion of the iceberg that is hiding underneath the surface,” says Jason Wright, national account manager, rental, with Industrial Scientific Corporation in Oakdale, Pennsylvania. “Along with the initial cost of purchasing gas detectors are several other factors that are often not considered related to ownership.”

For example, depending on whether an employer chooses to purchase a disposable gas detector, expand their fleet by buying extra gas detectors or use a

third party to perform maintenance on additional detectors, some of the following may apply: taxes; disposal fees; labour costs (bump tests, calibrations and sensor replacements for portable monitors); training costs for servicing instruments; costs associated with purchasing parts; freight charges; logistics of ordering for parts; and storage costs.

But before an employer even decides whether to buy or rent, they need to know what gases are present in the workplace, which will help steer them towards fixed or portable detection, or both, and single or multi-gas detectors. “You need to know what you are looking for before you pick a

GAS DETECTION | PRODUCTS

FOOD FOR THOUGHT Jason Wright, national account manager, rental, with Industrial Scientific Corporation in Oakdale, Pennsylvania, says that although renting gas detection equipment can be a cost-effective and efficient way to keep workers safe, not all rental programs are created equal. Employers looking to rent gas detectors should consider:

• RENTAL PERIODS — Some rental companies start the clock on the day the

equipment leaves their facilities; others start it the day it is received. Similarly, the end date could either be when the equipment leaves the workplace or when the rental company receives it;

• ACCESSORIES — If the monitor has a rechargeable battery, ask if the charger

will be included. If the detector has a sampling pump, determine if the sample tubing and filter will be included. Ask the rental company about accessories that may make the job easier;

• FAILED SENSORS — Some rental companies make up the internal expenses of maintaining their rental fleet by charging customers for sensors that fail while in use, even if the sensors fail due to normal use;

• FREIGHT CHARGES — If the equipment is being shipped to the job site, find out how the freight will be charged. Some rental companies may issue prepaid return labels with the order, so that the customer does not have to pay the return freight charges; and

• PRE-CALIBRATION AND SERVICING — Ask to have calibration certificates

Photo: Industrial Scientific Corporation

provided with each rental unit. Are the rental units serviced by factory-trained technicians? Will the cost of the rental cover normal wear and tear?

gas detector, because they offer a variety of sensors,” explains Ross Humphry, general manager of Canadian Safety Equipment Inc. in Mississauga, Ontario.

“They have infrared, they have PID [photoionization detectors], they have chemical sensors, and if you’re going to use a gas detector, you have got to know what gases you can expect to find.”

PIDs are useful for monitoring volatile organic compounds, while infrared sensors are well-suited for gases such as butane and propane. Other sensors may serve specific industries, such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide sensors for the mining sector.

THE BIG FOUR Generally speaking, gas detectors can be broken down into two main types: fixed and portable. Although the number and combination of gases that can be monitored is extensive, the standard portable gas monitor measures for hydrogen sulphide (H2S), oxygen (O2), carbon monoxide (CO) and combustible gases (typically displayed as the lower explosive limit). “There’s still essentially the basic four,” says Manish Gupta, market manager with Draeger Safety Canada Ltd. in Mississauga.

Humphry stresses the importance of knowing the hazards of the work environment. “If you were going to go into a confined space that had gasoline and you were using a normal, municipal-calibrated four gas detector, which would be combustible, oxygen, hydrogen sulphide and carbon monoxide, you have no protection from gasoline,” says Humphry.

“Gasoline will knock you out as a toxic, besides the fact it’s a carcinogen, before it will even show up on a methane-calibrated combustible gas detector.”

Unfortunately, there is always the chance of misidentifying the hazard present. Humphry says that some people use CO sensors to go into municipal confined

spaces, referring to municipal road and sewer work. “The only way you are going to get carbon monoxide in a confined space is if you put it there,” he says. “I’ve had gas detector people, people selling it, telling me there is carbon monoxide in the sewers, and I call them on it.”

Once the hazard is identified and the type of gas detector selected, the decision comes back to renting or buying, at least for portable instruments. John Raimondi, product marketing manager at MSA in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania, says that it all depends on the situation. “There are situations where a contractor who may not have a detection program going on a short-term contract or short-term job may find it more advantageous to rent versus buy,” he says. “There are some end users who lease for extended periods, which may not be the best thing for a long-term solution.” Paul Jung, product line manager at MSA, agrees, saying that for the majority of the company’s end users, “maintaining your own fleet comes with a significant cost savings.”

Wright notes that renting may come in handy for turnarounds — planned, periodic shutdowns of a refinery process unit or plant to perform maintenance, overPIPELINE SPRING 2014 | 27

Photo: Industrial Scientific Corporation

PRODUCTS | GAS DETECTION

haul and repair operations and to inspect, test and replace process materials and equipment. Renting a unit, which could be daily, weekly, monthly or even yearly, may also be useful for outages, special projects, experiments or tests, emergencies and contractor work.

Humphry says his company does rent out detectors for confined space applications in the municipal or construction sectors, but it’s rare. “That’s where a contractor may do this once or twice a year, so they may look for a gas detector,” he says.

“Occasionally, we will loan a customer one while waiting for his new one to show up, but there are some things you just don’t rent. You can buy an H2S single gas detector for like $300. Why would you rent a $300 instrument?” he asks.

For the oil and gas industry, “renting just doesn’t make sense,” Gupta adds, unless it is for a short-term project. “They are using their gas monitors every single day, so it makes a lot more sense to purchase their own units and do their own maintenance.

“Where a lot of the challenges and a lot of the big dollars add up is whenever they

28 | SPRING 2014 PIPELINE

get into the longer-term rentals, the one-, two-, three-, sometimes even four-year lease agreements that people are in,” Raimondi says. “If you are a contractor and you have a short-term job, you have a few weeks turnaround, you’re on site, it may make some sense. That being said, if you’re a contractor that is doing a lot of turnaround work and you’re putting guys out on a regular basis, certainly the ownership equation definitely looks more favourable.”

THIS OR THAT Cost of ownership is a big factor in the decision. In a general sense, Gupta estimates that “if you were to rent the unit, you could buy it yourself in two to three months. People buy the lowest price gas monitor that might cost X and only last two years, but then they could have bought the [more expensive] gas monitor that will last five years,” he adds. Still, some customers prefer to rent, Gupta says, using the example of those who send the unit back to a manufacturer for regular maintenance to eliminate those costs or those who don’t want the “capital” cost associated with owning the product. “We do find there are some customers who say they prefer it that way,” he says of renting.

Another expense that can be overlooked is the cost of calibration gas, with Jung saying that it can be heavily weighted on how much gas is being used on a daily basis to perform bump testing and calibrations.

“With the amount of calibration gas you apply for an instrument that flows calibration gas at a half-litre a minute with slower sensors, you’re talking anywhere from probably $1,500 to $2,000 or even more in calibration gas per instrument,” Raimondi estimates, noting that this could be several times the initial cost of the instrument.

“For us, when you factor in the speed at which our sensors respond and the fact that we only flow calibration gas at a quar-

PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT — GAS DETECTION

Draeger Safety Canada Ltd. in Mississauga, Ontario offers the X-dock series of test and calibration stations for portable gas detection instruments. The series features automatic bump tests and calibrations with reduced test gas consumption and short testing times to save time and money, says a product sheet.

The device, which works independently and can be configured and used with a personal computer, immediately detects all sensor combinations and automatically tests and adjusts when

all required test gases are connected.

Up to 10 modules can be connected to the X-dock at any given time, allowing users to test gas detection instruments simultaneously, but also independently of one another.

Other benefits include: touchscreen operation at the master station; automatic tests of alarm elements (acoustic, visual and vibration alarms); templates for regular reports; the possibility of 12-volt operation (for vehicles, for example); and an overview page that quickly compiles the most important information.

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PRODUCTS | GAS DETECTION

PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT — GAS DETECTION MSA’s Altair 4X is an extremely durable multi-gas detector that simultaneously measures up to four gases from a wide range of sensor options, including combustible gases, oxygen, carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen sulphide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. Its four-year sensor life is 60 per cent longer than the industry average, while its 24-hour run time exceeds the industry average by 71 per cent, the company reports on its website.

The unit also uses 50 per cent less calibration gas per minute than average detectors in the industry, and the “two-tox” CO/H2S sensor removes practically all crosschannel interference. The ribbed rubber housing provides a secure grip and high durability, and the exclusive end-of-sensor warning cautions users when the unit’s sensor needs to be changed, the company reports.

ter of a litre a minute, you’ve taken that equation and made that calibration gas cost now maybe a factor of one, one time the cost of the instrument.” Expanding that sentiment further, he says that for an employer who has 200 or 250 instruments, “that’s easily a quarter to a half-million dollars or more over the life of that fleet.”

Gupta agrees that the cost of calibration gas adds up. “We even had cases of customers who would put it into the bump test station, run off, make their coffee, come back and then it would finish doing this bump test, and then they would complain later, saying, ‘This thing uses a lot of gas.’”

For MSA, the oil, gas and petrochemical (OGP) market represents a “significant fraction of the industrial customer landscape” for the company’s portable products, Jung says. Raimondi adds that most of the company’s “voice of the customer” exercises start with the OGP market.

In the OGP market, one major concern is durability. “Will it hold up because our workers are hard on their equipment?”

Raimondi asks. “A lot times one of our sales reps will literally throw our instruments halfway across the room into a concrete wall, have it bounce all over the floor. The proof really is in the pudding.”

Jung notes that OGP workers, especially in the upstream sector, can be very rough on their equipment, “so we make sure we design our products with appropriate protection, so if they get jostled or dropped or thrown or dunked in water for that matter, they are rugged enough to take that kind of abuse, survive and still provide protection.” To handle industry 30 | SPRING 2014 PIPELINE

demands, MSA’s Altair line of products are designed with a 20-foot drop test in mind, because the weak point in the instrument is not the instrument itself, but its combustible sensor, Raimondi says.

HEART OF THE MATTER One major improvement in the gas detection market is sensor technology.

Raimondi says sensors can now react more quickly or are more sensitive to a particular gas. He uses the example of the American Conference of Industrial Hygienists’ 2010 guideline for H2S monitoring (an eight-hour time-weighted average of one part per million, 10 times lower than previously), which several provinces have adopted. Raimondi points to MSA’s XCell sensor line, designed with an onboard ASIC (application specific integrated circuit) chip on each sensor. “That really enables some of that low concentration work, some of the speedier sensor response and less gas use in calibration and maintenance,” he says. Gupta adds that Draeger can meet that guideline, although not many manufacturers can.

Another advancement is ease-of-use.

Gupta says Draeger’s X-dock test and calibration stations allow for data monitoring from one central source. So a company with operations in Ontario and Manitoba could ensure that workers in both provinces are performing bump tests and calibrations.

High-powered batteries are also gaining traction in the oil and gas industry, in which a standard eight-hour shift is not the norm, Gupta says. “They’re saying

they need the battery twice as long, because it just dies after eight or ten hours,” he says. “That’s one of the newest things we’re seeing: the device will last as long as they work.”

TAKING IT TO HEART For Jung, ease-of-use is paramount — “having to think less of the care, maintenance, having a more worry-free gas detection program available to them. That’s the holistic view that a lot of customers are taking a look at.” Raimondi adds that “a couple of instrument generations ago,” it was a chore to educate a large workforce on how to calibrate a detector effectively and perform a bump test manually.

Raimondi says the company has taken this feedback to heart, pointing to the Galaxy GX2 automated test system. He explains that the system’s test stand is based on a stop light system. “The cylinder holder will tell you, based on whether the band over the cylinder is green, yellow or red, if the calibration gas is about to expire or getting low or is already low.”

Overall, gas detector technology is becoming pretty sophisticated, Humphry says, citing smaller devices, interchangeable sensors and sensors that are easy to remove and replace. “You can get some really sophisticated gas detectors and what they’ll do technology-wise, but they still perform the same basic function, which is to alarm and let you know that there’s a problem and to data log it, so you can go back and check afterwards.”

Simpler and more automated devices seem to be the way of the future. Gupta uses the example of a worker who sometimes feels he needs more work and training on the gas monitor than on the job itself. “The gas monitor is supposed to be a safety accessory to help protect you, not a very technological piece of equipment that makes your job more difficult.”

Gupta says that he is finding that workers, especially oil rig workers, are starting to respect gas monitors. “We’re finding the learning curve is changing and they realize they need to respect this piece of equipment, because this piece of equipment is going to protect me and save my life.” PL Jason Contant is the editor of Pipeline Magazine.

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