County woman is not worried by pipeline blast
PARKER TWP — The gas line that runs through Twila Best’s neighborhood on West Eldorado Road exploded Monday — not here in Butler County, but farther down the line where the gas is being pumped.
Early Monday morning, a point in Beaver County that’s roughly midway along the Revolution Pipeline exploded. The pipeline, which is owned by Dallas-based company Energy Transfer Partners, takes methane gas from Butler County to a site in Washington County, according to documentation on the project the company made available to investors during its development.
Best’s neighborhood is near the pipeline’s northernmost tip, just down the street from the first in a series of large stations where the fuel is compressed and pushed through lines.
“I don’t know what to say,” Best said after learning of the explosion. “That’s getting a little bit closer to home. I’m wondering how it could be.”
Best’s home is about a minute east of Energy Transfer’s Galaxy Compressor Station. The house is a family treasure — Best said she was born in it and has lived there her entire life.
The major pipeline work only began in the last decade, she said, but it hasn’t worried her.
“I’m not afraid of it,” Best said. “I grew up with my grandfather pumping wells on our property. I never really thought about it.”
She is aware of all the work surrounding her community, though. Best said she heard talk that a company was boring under the Allegheny River nearby, and she said she and friends refer to one nearby gas drilling site as “the mall” because of its expansive size.
The Revolution Pipeline cuts diagonally across Butler County from its northeast tip to its southeast corner. The explosion occurred in Beaver County’s Center Township.
The fire reportedly died out within two hours because valves automatically cut off its fuel supply, according to a statement from Energy Transfer. The fire simply burned all of its fuel and went out.
Scott Hoffman, a HAZMAT specialist for Butler County Emergency Services, said public safety officials would rely on such a system to handle a similar incident in Butler County, if one would occur.
“You shut it off and let the line burn it all out,” Hoffman said.
Emergency Services has hosted pipeline awareness and emergency response classes at Butler County Community College. Fire departments that operate near a pipeline are represented at those classes, he said.
The department has emergency contact information for every pipeline in the area, Hoffman said, including the Revolution Pipeline.
“We know who to call if there is a problem,” Hoffman said. “But to date, we’ve never had an issue that I know of with a pipeline.”
The damaged line was a 24-inch gas gathering line, according to the company. The investor documents label much of the line in Butler as the same type of pipe.
The small section of line extending north of the Eldorado Road station is a low-pressure line, the documents show.
A 2015 legal notice for that station’s construction states that it included five natural gas-fired, 1,725-horsepower compressor engines, which are used to compress the gas, pushing it through a line.
