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I don’t know about the rest of the nation but the natural gas infrastructure in Massachusetts is comically terrible. It isn’t unusual to be walking down the str
by kbos87 8y ago
I don’t know about the rest of the nation but the natural gas infrastructure in Massachusetts is comically terrible. It isn’t unusual to be walking down the street in Boston (note: a separate utility than tonight’s incident) and to walk into a cloud of natural gas. I had such a cloud on my residential street for years that was strong enough to burn your eyes. National Grid would come by every few months, stick a probe in the ground, and declare it not worth fixing despite our repeated calls. I wonder how much of their product actually makes it from production facilities to end households without leaking out along the way.
- jghn 8y agoWe regularly have the fire department roll up in front of my house to investigate a reported gas leak. One time it scared the crap out of me as I went to let the dog out and there were men on my deck. As it turns out they were from the FD and checking out my grill At some point I saw a map of all of those mini-leaks which are known and not worth fixing and sure enough one is right in front of my house
- devb 8y agoI don't call the gas company, I call the fire department. They tend to take paper trails a lot more seriously.
- userbinator 8y agoI had such a cloud on my residential street for years that was strong enough to burn your eyes. That is the odourant, which fortunately alerts you of its presence and concentration. Pure methane is odourless. National Grid would come by every few months, stick a probe in the ground, and declare it not worth fixing despite our repeated calls. To me that just sounds like a huge WTF!?!? If it was lit, would they just come and extinguish it and then leave? Regardless, I'd consider it a massive hazard to have clouds of flammable gas just lingering everywhere.
- lovich 8y agoThere's a 30 year old gas leak here. I've heard there's a group that celebrates it's birthday every year. The op was not exaggerating when he said it was comically terrible. Im surprised no politician has pushed to get it fixed since climate change is something people care about in the area and methane is much worse for global warming than carbon dioxide
- fapjacks 8y agoI'll be damned: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/09/16/advocates-hold-birthday-party-for-year-old-gas-leak/oVdA1DgfF4RuHwKxDlWecI/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/09/16/advocates-hold-...
- Gravityloss 8y agoIt's like how it's best that some companies or probably even countries are best to stay away from nuclear power: to have even moderate safety requires a certain attitude and ability to organize. If your city or country has a lot of corruption, then it's really hard to have safety because companies get competitive advantage from bribing. The dark ages are constantly there, just waiting to return.
- jacquesm 8y agoIt's like being a ship on the ocean. You could be lulled into a false sense of safety by the pretty views and the flying fish but death is always right around the corner and waiting mercilessly for you to fuck up every so slightly.
- stephengillie 8y agoCould barely see the title before being begged for money.
- fapjacks 8y agoHuh, weird. For me it was the inverse. I barely saw anything but the text of the article, presumably because of uBlock Origin.
- swingline-747 8y agoIt's usually an organosulfur or mercaptan IIRC which humans can detect in PPB. I think one of the compounds is that which is used in stinkbombs. PS: Are stinkbombs still a thing in schools? Or has zero-tolerance made that a capital crime too?
- wiz21c 8y ago>>> PS: Are stinkbombs still a thing in schools? Or has zero-tolerance made that a capital crime too? Off topic, but so d.mn right/funny :-)
- neuronic 8y agoThis would be considered chemical terrorism nowadays and the perp would get 3 life sentences.
- dredmorbius 8y agoThere's a story behind why gas is oderised. 295 souls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_London_School_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_London_School_explosion
- mannykannot 8y agoIf this gas supplier thought it could get away with not putting an odourant in the gas supply, I suspect it would do exactly that.
- kibwen 8y agoI believe there are several efforts, some of them community-driven, to identify and catalogue gas leaks in Massachusetts. Here's one with a fascinating (startling?) map of gas leak locations (scroll down): http://gasleaksclf.org/ http://gasleaksclf.org/
- reaperducer 8y agoAny idea if “National Grid” is related to the British company, or is that merely coincidental?
- perl4ever 8y agoYes, I believe it's related. They operate in the northeastern US. They replaced Niagara Mohawk where I live. Edit: But I don't believe this story is about National Grid.
- cure 8y ago> Edit: But I don't believe this story is about National Grid. That is correct - the company that owns the infrastructure where things went horribly wrong is Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, which is owned by NISource (NYSE:NI), which is based in Indiana.
- jolux 8y agoYep, same company.
- noir_lord 8y agoCurious how the same company doing the same business can be excellent in the UK and apparently so bad in the US. Iirc we recently sold the gas part of the national grid to a Chinese company.
- village-idiot 8y agoProbably different leadership or financials between the branches.
- Stranger43 8y agoOg regulatory framework European infrastructure operators tend to be regulated to a much higher degree then American standards for business independence allows.
- ridgeguy 8y agoYou might try looking up your gas company's agent for service of process (Secretary of State site search, probably). Send a registered snail mail describing the leak in your neighborhood to the agent, copy corporate counsel and at least one local news organization. Major bonus points if you find and copy the gas company's insurance carrier. Emphasize the potential for destruction of property and death of innocents - and the gas company's potential liability. Raise the spectre of California's PG&E and San Bruno. Management and its insurers care deeply about liability. Old-fashioned paper trails can be surprisingly effective.
- tomcam 8y agoReally good suggestion
- swingline-747 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion
- emodendroket 8y ago> On January 13, 2012, an independent audit from the State of California issued a report stating that PG&E had illegally diverted over $100 million from a fund used for safety operations, and instead used it for executive compensation and bonuses. That's pretty impressively cynical.
- sulam 8y agoYou can now raise the spectre of Andover. :(
- tomcam 8y agoHere in our Seattle bedroom community the gas people are phenomenal, and they deal with every leak, no matter how minor. They will come out in the middle of the night without being asked twice. I am thankful.
- cardiffspaceman 8y agoIn SDG&E territory, I had a plumber notice a leak near the gas meter, and encourage me to call it in. I called it in at 3PM. At 5 there was an initial crew. At 11pm the guys with the real tools came and finished it off, including the use of a jackhammer at 12:30am (you do what you have to do). Then I read about people with gas bubbling up through their lawns in San Bruno before it blew up and I was shocked that the other utility company had such low standards.