Pipeline Safety in the Great Lakes: Incident Prevention and Response Efforts at the Straits of Mackinac

The Honorable Howard “Skip” Elliott, Administrator, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration

Statement before the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation

Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety and Security

United States Senate

“Pipeline Safety in the Great Lakes: Incident Prevention and Response Efforts at the Straits of Mackinac”

Traverse City, Michigan

August 20, 2018

I. Introduction

Senator Peters, thank you for having me to your beautiful state to testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security on the safety of Enbridge’s Lakehead System pipelines.

The mission of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration – PHMSA – is to protect people and the environment by advancing the safe transportation of energy and other products that are essential to our daily lives. After working for decades in the freight rail industry, a great deal of it working to improve public safety, I believe that safety is the result of effective, smart regulations that hold operators accountable for their systems – but I also know that it takes more than just regulations to improve safety performance.

PHMSA’s team for pipeline safety oversees more than 2.7 million miles of our Nation’s energy pipeline systems, including 3,437 miles of Hazardous Materials pipelines in Michigan alone.

During my railroad career, I responded to, and often visited again afterwards, the sites of more derailments and other man-made and natural disasters than I can remember. To inspire commitment, as for many other things, there is no more effective means than first-hand observation. Here in beautiful Michigan, I am very understanding of your concerns of the catastrophic effects a pipeline oil spill could have on the environment.

Our goal – which I believe is attainable – is zero pipeline incidents, and I know that when regulators, industry, and the public collaborate, we can find new paths forward to achieve that goal.

Our pipeline oversight program is based on three fundamental tenets:

• PHMSA's primary roles are to establish minimum safety standards and take enforcement actions against operators if they are not in compliance with these standards.
• PHMSA can impact safety culture and operator performance beyond minimum compliance with the regulations. PHMSA concurs with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) that Safety Management Systems are the next big step toward broad safety improvement.
• Pipeline operators must understand and manage the risks associated with their pipelines, including taking actions to prevent pipeline spills and minimizing the impact of any spills should they occur.

II. PHMSA Response to Enbridge Incidents

The spills that occurred on the Enbridge Lakehead System lines in Michigan were a failure in Enbridge’s risk management and incident response procedures.[1] While the pipeline failures, including those in Marshall, Michigan, and Grand Marsh, Wisconsin, caused damage to the area, PHMSA has worked with Enbridge and our partner federal agencies to improve our prevention, emergency response practices, and future strategies to learn the lessons of these incidents.

PHMSA’s immediate response to the Enbridge Line 6B spill in 2010 was to dispatch two investigators to the release site and one additional investigator to the Enbridge control center in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Several more inspectors worked on-site to address both PHMSA and NTSB’s investigative responsibilities. Our inspectors investigated Enbridge’s compliance with regulations related to maintaining the integrity of the line and control room procedures, and examined Enbridge's response to the incident, including its leak detection capabilities, emergency shut-down systems, and its notification procedures and practices. PHMSA also investigated Enbridge’s conduct and compliance with pipeline safety laws, including whether Enbridge promptly notified the National Response Center of the spill, had an adequate leak detection system and related control room procedures, and whether its pipeline integrity program met PHMSA’s safety standards.

PHMSA quickly coordinated with community leaders and first responders, as well as with members of the NTSB, Region 5 representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency, congressional staff, and emergency personnel engaged in the response efforts. The Department and PHMSA also attended and spoke at community meetings, met directly with community leaders, and participated in briefings for local officials.

In response to the findings, PHMSA took swift action to ensure the safety of the area. Within three days of the Marshall spill, PHMSA issued a Corrective Action Order (CAO) to Enbridge requiring specific steps to ensure the safety of the pipeline before they would be allowed to restart the line. The steps included a requirement to develop and submit for PHMSA approval a written gradual step-by-step restart plan for Line 6B, and develop and submit for approval an integrity verification and remedial work plan for Line 6B.

PHMSA continued to monitor the situation and later updated the CAO with additional integrity information and repair expectations. As inspections and repairs progressed, PHMSA continued to seek additional information and hold Enbridge to the necessary high standards before the line restart. During remediation, PHMSA oversaw the pipe removal, the repairs, and all testing.

Due to the widespread extent of the failures, PHMSA went beyond the standard incident response to inspect, investigate, review, and respond in a way that would ensure that any issues that contributed to failures would be remedied. PHMSA took a holistic approach to responding to and investigating these failures, and looked beyond the failed lines to examine Enbridge’s entire Lakehead system.

PHMSA reviewed the whole Lakehead System in the Great Lakes Region and addressed safety issues on a company-wide basis, making a broader safety commitment for the entire region. In addition to a Notice of Probable Violation with proposed penalties of $3.7 million,[2] PHMSA issued a Consent Order to Enbridge in 2012 that focused on specific safety measures that would ensure the short- and long-term safety of the system.[3]

PHMSA’s Consent Order required Enbridge to review its integrity management system for the entire U.S. portion of its Lakehead pipeline system, including the two pipelines running beneath the Straits of Mackinac. Specifically, PHMSA required Enbridge to analyze the health of its entire pipeline system, using in-line inspections and hydrostatic pressure testing, and to address any problems found.

The Consent Order also required Enbridge to establish a safety improvement plan for the Lakehead Pipeline system. As part of the Consent Order, Enbridge and its contractors reviewed and significantly improved its Facility Response Plans, including the one applicable to the Straits of Mackinac, developed the initiatives to improve its safety management system culture and training, revise emergency procedures, and step up the integrity management program for all 1,900 miles of the Lakehead system. Enbridge reported it spent $2.5 billion in complying with PHMSA’s Corrective Action Orders.

III. Prevention

Enbridge’s mandated system-wide testing discovered and repaired numerous areas of concern before these faults caused the pipeline to leak or rupture. Though Pipeline 6B only failed in one location, Enbridge replaced the entire line based on the results of in-line inspections and verification digs. Enbridge completed the final replacement construction of Line 6B in 2014. Enbridge has committed to replacing Line 3 as well, and while this replacement was not specifically required by PHMSA’s Lakehead Plan Consent Order, PHMSA supports Enbridge’s proposal to replace the line.

Before closing the Consent Order against Enbridge, PHMSA took additional steps to validate the safety of the Lakehead System. PHMSA contracted with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), an independent third-party expert, in 2015 to review the latest Enbridge internal inspections of the Straits of Mackinac pipeline crossings to determine whether they indicated the presence of any potentially injurious defects. The ORNL report was completed in May 2016 and did not indicate any conditions of immediate concern, confirming PHMSA’s decision not to require further corrective actions at that time.  The experts also looked at in-line results from previous inspections to support that validation. 

While PHMSA terminated the Consent Order in 2016, PHMSA continues to monitor the implementation of the Enbridge’s Lakehead Plan. The plan’s comprehensive approach continues to produce significant safety improvements to the overall system that include additional remotely-operated valves, enhanced control room operations and leak detection, increased internal inspections, confirmatory hydrostatic pressure testing on specific pipelines, and pipe replacement, along with enhancements to the operator’s organizational safety culture.

Line 5

While Enbridge’s previous spills have led to widespread concern over the safety of Line 5, I want to take a moment to emphasize that Line 5 was designed and constructed to significantly higher safety standards than the lines that had failed. Typically, our regulations allow a pipeline to be operated at a pressure that produces a hoop stress of 72 percent of the specified minimum yield strength of the steel pipe.  In the case of the Line 5 crossings at the Straits of Mackinac, the twin pipelines were designed and have been operated at a maximum pressure that produces a hoop stress of only 25 percent of the specified minimum yield strength of the steel pipe. This is primarily due to the thickness of the wall of the pipeline, which is more than three times the thickness of the failed Line 6B. Because of these differences, PHMSA believes Line 5 has a much lower risk of failure.

PHMSA continues to require Line 5 to meet or exceed our pipeline safety regulation, policies, and procedures. As part of our actions related to the Lakehead Plan, PHMSA conducted reviews of Enbridge’s internal inspections, maximum operating pressure determinations, and capacity increase modifications for Line 5 and did not identify any compliance issues. Enbridge has publicly committed to additional activities to monitor and inspect the pipeline segments crossing the Straits of Mackinac. PHMSA will continue to track Enbridge’s progress on these commitments.

PHMSA engineers are attending, in person, Enbridge’s hydrostatic pressure tests of the crossings, and PHMSA is monitoring Enbridge’s compliance with the Congressional mandate for annual inspections of pipeline water crossings over 150 feet deep. We will take appropriate action should Enbridge not comply or the additional inspections identify a safety issue. Enbridge continues to inspect Line 5 biannually, using a remotely operated vehicle with cameras to view the bottom conditions and determine whether maintenance work is required on structural supports. This includes replacement and additions as necessary, to meet the requirements of the State of Michigan permit granting Enbridge the right to install the pipelines across the lake bottom.

We have a strong partnership with Michigan’s Public Service Commission and include State inspectors in our integrated inspections of any interstate natural gas transmission operators that operate in Michigan. In November 2017, we held a meeting with interstate agents, including Michigan, to review our interactions and develop plans and methodologies for working together in the future. We anticipate continuing that with annual meetings. In addition, we have enhanced communications with the Michigan Public Service Commission regarding activities associated with Enbridge and the Line 5 crossings.

Finally, PHMSA is in the process of completing a major integrated inspection of the Lakehead System. Inspectors are looking at all aspects of the system’s operation, including integrity management, control room management, design and construction, and corrosion. So far,[4] PHMSA inspectors have spent a total of 286 combined days on this inspection, with 200 of those days in the field. These integrated inspections are risk-based and data-driven – each inspection is designed to look at the risk profile of the individual pipeline operator and focus on the greatest risks to safety.

These inspections give us yet another way to ensure that Enbridge is always pursuing necessary safety improvements. Our inspectors provide timely inspection feedback to Enbridge, keeping them informed of any potential safety issues that they find, and giving them the safety information they need as quickly as possible.

IV. Response Readiness

My goal as Administrator is to keep moving the pipeline industry towards the goal of zero incidents – but I know that it’s also vital to be prepared to mitigate the effects of failure.

Emergency response readiness and planning is already a large part of what PHMSA does.  Our Oil Spill Preparedness and Emergency Support Division reviews oil spill response plans[5] and helps plan for, participates in, and observes and evaluates pipeline oil spill exercises for operators such as Enbridge, Buckeye, Mark West and others – in cooperation with the Coast Guard, EPA and Michigan DEQ.

PHMSA has strong relationships with other organizations involved in responding to pipeline incidents and emergencies. When PHMSA responds to an incident, its primary concerns are public safety and determining an operator’s compliance with PHMSA’s regulations. However, when a spill occurs in a body of water, the Coast Guard and EPA are responsible for ensuring that the responsible party cleans it up.

PHMSA has a long history of working closely with local emergency officials in response to pipeline emergencies and its staff effectively participates in incidents where there is an Integrated Command System and is often requested to share information and support the investigations of other agencies. Additionally, PHMSA works to actively participate in training and drills held by other agencies to ensure seamless emergency response coordination.

In 2014 and 2016, the U.S. Coast Guard held full-scale PREP exercises in Michigan, and Enbridge served as the responsible party for both exercises.[6]  PHMSA participated in both exercises and provided feedback. Following the 2014 Indian River exercise, and with PHMSA’s strong encouragement, Enbridge agreed to conduct an equipment deployment exercise in the Straits of Mackinac in 2015. The initial planning for the exercise began in February 2015, and Enbridge conducted monthly planning meetings and conference calls. PHMSA staff participated in the planning meetings, conferences, and workshops.

The drill included Enbridge, the Coast Guard, the Environmental Protection Agency, PHMSA, Marine Pollution Control (Oil Spill Response Organization - OSRO), Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, Michigan State Police, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Scientific Support Coordinator, local and tribal emergency managers, other pipeline companies, and local media.

As part of the drill, Enbridge provided Incident Command System (ICS) refresher training and liaison training, and the Coast Guard Public Information Assist Team provided Risk Communication and Joint Information Center (JIC) training.

The drill itself consisted of a full-scale equipment deployment exercise to test and evaluate Enbridge’s Superior Response Zone Integrated Contingency Plan, Straits of Mackinac Tactical Response Plan and consistency with the Coast Guard Sector Sault Ste. Marie Area Contingency Plan and the Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 Geographic Response Plan under a Unified Command. Enbridge also held demonstrations of Shoreline Cleanup and Assessment Techniques (SCAT) and oiled wildlife care.

These drills are a vital part of response preparation, and PHMSA experts provide valuable input to these drills, and will continue to participate in them regularly.

PHMSA also collaborates with the International Joint Commission (IJC). The International Joint Commission prevents and resolves disputes between the United States of America and Canada[7] – in particular, ruling on applications for approval of projects affecting boundary or transboundary waters. The IJC assists the two countries in the protection of the transboundary environment, and PHMSA is happy to assist with safety and environmental impact expertise when needed.

I also want to thank my PHMSA team and our partners at the Coast Guard for such a prompt and thorough response to the recent anchor strike on Line 5. I understand that the incident raised some concerns, but PHMSA has been working closely with Enbridge as the best strategy was developed to repair the dents. PHMSA does not believe the dents present any immediate or near-term threat; nonetheless, the agency requested that Enbridge operate Line 5 at reduced pressure until the damage is remediated. Our on-site team has been monitoring the coating repair activities and, if necessary, will enforce the provisions in our regulations that require the application of cathodic protection to those spots to mitigate the effects of external corrosion. We’ve been coordinating closely with the Coast Guard as well to ensure the complete safety of the line.

IV. Proactive Actions

Regulatory Reform

PHMSA is also committed to reviewing the effectiveness of our oversight program by conducting a comprehensive evaluation of current, in-progress, and planned regulations and is working within the Department of Transportation as part of a One-DOT approach to ensure that the regulatory budget meets President Trump’s “two-for-one” Executive Order.

Beyond identifying opportunities to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens on public and private sector stakeholders, our goal is to use the regulatory reform efforts as an opportunity to remove unnecessary roadblocks to new technologies that can increase safety. I believe we can improve the way operators can achieve safety. We want operators to put additional resources where they will have the maximum safety impact, such as greater investment in safety research and development and technology-based safety enhancements.

As always, our focus is ultimately on safety performance. It is the responsibility of the oil and gas industry to understand and manage the risks of their systems. The current regulatory climate gives us all a unique opportunity to work together to optimize our regulations for safety. As PHMSA Administrator, I will continue to push industry to not wait, but to invest in and accelerate their pipeline safety efforts now, making substantive safety improvements best suited to their systems, and without specific direction from regulations.

Research and Development

In that vein, our own Research and Development program is a key tool in technology-driven safety improvements, and I am very proud of all the ways our R&D program supports new technology to further improve pipeline safety. Since its inception, PHMSA’s R&D program has worked on implementing a collaborative and coordinated research strategy with stakeholders who share PHMSA's safety goals.

Our program sponsors research projects that can provide near-term solutions to improve safety, reduce environmental impacts, and enhance the reliability of the Nation’s pipeline transportation system. Since 2002, we have invested nearly $93 million dollars in 270 R&D projects. Among them, 22 patent applications and 28 new pipeline technologies have since hit the market, including above-ground, radar-based pipeline mapping and a nondestructive testing method for pipelines that cannot accommodate traditional in-line inspection tools. We’ve also invested over $800,000 on a project in leak detection systems,[8] a vital part of preventing large-scale spills, especially in high-consequence areas.

V. Looking Ahead

Lessons Learned

The lessons learned from these incidents spanned a wide range of safety topics, from control room operations, to pipeline maintenance, to spill response.

In 2014, PHMSA published an advisory bulletin, “Pipeline Safety: Lessons Learned From the Release at Marshall, Michigan.”[9] The bulletin informed operators of the deficiencies that contributed to the Marshall spill, specifically integrity management, control center operations, and public awareness.

Through the bulletin, PHMSA encouraged operators to review their own IM programs for similar deficiencies and to take corrective action, as well as consider training their control room staff as teams to recognize and respond to emergencies or unexpected conditions. The advisory also encouraged operators to evaluate their leak detection capabilities to ensure adequate leak detection coverage during transient operations and assess the performance of their leak detection systems following a product release to identify and implement improvements as appropriate. Additionally, the bulletin encouraged operators to review the effectiveness of their public awareness programs and whether local emergency response teams are adequately prepared to identify and respond to early indications of ruptures.

PHMSA learned that we needed to adjust regulations where control room management is concerned, which we did last year.[10] Our efforts to improve our regulations provide additional guidance on how control room operators work as teams, and included a component for team training in operator qualifications.

We’ve also conducted several workshops to share the lessons learned, including workshops on risk modeling, risk management, and improving the ability to detect pipeline seam defects.[11] These workshops help improve both our oversight and the knowledge base of the industry on managing risk. We are also planning a risk modeling workshop for later this year, to present the results of our work on improving the use of risk models to manage pipeline safety.

Safety Management Systems (SMS)

As you know, I believe that the Safety Management Systems (SMS) approach is a core part of our safety mission – and a key part of SMS is applying lessons learned. While the goal of SMS is to prevent accidents and incidents from ever occurring, we pursue that goal by learning from the accidents that do happen and proactively using that information.

To be effective, SMS requires PHMSA to move beyond the role of being just a regulator – to push operators to identify and target their own risks, and to encourage a company-wide culture that makes safety the number one priority, always.

For an SMS culture to permeate through all levels and areas of the pipeline industry, we need ways to share and analyze data, allowing all of us to see emerging trends to inform best practices. Just over a year ago, PHMSA established the Pipeline Safety Management System Working Group to tackle that problem – to identify SMS implementation performance metrics to measure both progress and challenges. The working group is made up of members of our gas and liquid pipeline advisory committees, and similarly includes representatives from each of our stakeholder groups.

Our Pipeline Safety Management Group will continue to work to encourage operators to implement SMS and support industry efforts to develop new SMS tools. We all share the same goal of zero pipeline incidents, and I believe that the more we collaborate, the safer our nation’s pipelines will be.

Underlying Principles

It is the responsibility of pipeline operators to understand and manage the risks associated with their pipelines. While PHMSA pursues safety by impacting operating behavior and performance, front-line responsibility for safety is placed clearly in the hands of the industry.

PHMSA’s primary role is to establish minimum safety standards (defined in the regulations by required risk control practices) and to verify that the operators perform to these standards. We set the rules, but we don't assume compliance. We verify compliance through our inspections and take action as necessary if we find non-compliances. However, compliance is necessary, but not sufficient if we want to improve performance.

PHMSA also impacts industry performance beyond minimal compliance by improving the industry-wide knowledge base, participating in standards organizations, supporting R&D projects, promoting technology transfer and technical knowledge sharing though public workshops, and through direct executive level interactions with operators to review operator performance and discuss concerns and areas for improvement.

Regulatory Efforts

I understand the importance of moving forward PHMSA’s Safety of Hazardous Liquid Pipeline rulemaking. The Marshall rupture occurred during the last stages of a planned shutdown and was not discovered or addressed for over 17 hours. As a result, in part, of the rupture, we’ve determined that additional safety standards are needed, including the expansion of IM regulations to more hazardous liquid pipelines.

This rulemaking would amend the Pipeline Safety Regulations to improve protection of the public, property, and the environment by improving safety protections and filling regulatory gaps. This rule is one of our highest priorities and will be completed as quickly as possible.

The Marshall rupture was unconfirmed for many hours, but as soon as it was confirmed, the failed segment of the pipeline was immediately isolated using remote-controlled valves. Because of this and other large-scale incidents, PHMSA has determined that additional minimum Federal safety standards are needed to mitigate events involving large-volume, uncontrolled releases of gas and hazardous liquids.

We are currently developing a notice of proposed rulemaking for Pipeline Rupture Detection and Mitigation for Onshore Populated and High Consequence Areas that will newly define these large-scale events as “ruptures” and require operators to identify and isolate ruptures on their system within certain time frames.

The overall intent is that rupture detection metrics will be integrated with valve placement to improve overall incident response in populated or environmentally sensitive areas. Rupture response metrics would focus on mitigating large, unsafe, uncontrolled release events that have a greater potential consequence.

VI. Conclusion

Safety is the Department of Transportation’s highest priority. I assure you that the Department will remain vigilant in ensuring the safety and integrity of all pipelines under its jurisdiction. PHMSA holds all pipeline operators accountable for the safe operation of their pipelines, and we will continue to pursue our goal of a safe pipeline system through as many avenues as can, from transition inspection and enforcement, to education and technology innovation.

Thank you and I am happy to respond to your questions.