A section of the Mountain Valley Pipeline atop Bent Mountain ruptured Wednesday during tests to determine the pipe’s integrity before it begins to carry natural gas under high pressure.
The buried pipe failed as it was undergoing hydrostatic testing, which involves running highly pressurized water through it to ensure there are no leaks or flaws, a Mountain Valley spokeswoman said.
Water that escaped from the damaged 42-inch diameter pipe made its way, mostly underground, to a nearby stream, clouding it with sediment that was soon noticed by nearby residents.
A section of Mountain Valley Pipeline near the intersection of U.S. 221 and the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Bent Mountain community of Roanoke County was dug up this week after a leak was discovered Wednesday. Two pieces of test equipment have been welded to the pipeline, some 1,600 feet from the parkway.
As news of the incident spread, critics said Friday that it foreshadows the dangers of an explosion, which they say would have occurred had the pipe been transporting volatile natural gas rather than water.
“We have warned regulatory officials that MVP is a reckless company tossing corroding pipes into landslide-prone mountain slopes in a rush to meet its contract obligations,” Russell Chisholm of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights coalition said in a statement.
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“It is past time for our safety to come first,” Chisholm said.
After years of construction delays caused by legal fights, Mountain Valley says the 303-mile pipeline is nearly completed. The company last month asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for permission to begin operations by June 1.
Federal regulations require hydrostatic testing before a pipeline is placed into service. Mountain Valley spokeswoman Natalie Cox said the process serves as a “quality assurance test.”
A section of Mountain Valley Pipeline near the intersection of U.S. 221 and the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Bent Mountain community of Roanoke County was dug up this week after a leak was discovered Wednesday. Two pieces of test equipment have been attached to the pipeline, some 1,600 feet from the parkway.
The incident Wednesday morning was the first failure of a pipe during tests that have been conducted along Mountain Valley’s route through West Virginia and Southwest Virginia, according to Cox.
As of April 30, hydrostatic testing had been successfully completed on about 269 miles of the pipeline’s path, she said in an email Friday.
The condition of 42-inch diameter pipe is a key concern of opponents. Sections of the pipe lay unused along Mountain Valley’s right-of-way and in storage yards for years as lawsuits slowed construction. That raised fears that a protective coating — meant to guard against corrosion once the pipe is buried — had been weakened by exposure to the elements.
In a consent order last October, the U.S Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration directed Mountain Valley to conduct inspections and make repairs where needed.
A section of Mountain Valley Pipeline near the intersection of U.S. 221 and the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Bent Mountain community of Roanoke County was dug up this week after a leak was discovered Wednesday. Two pieces of test equipment have been welded to the pipeline, some 1,600 feet from the parkway.
Other pipelines have gone into operation without a failure detected by hydrostatic testing, according to Richard Kuprewicz, an expert on pipeline safety who is president of Accufacts Inc., a Redmond, Washington, consulting firm.
But Kuprewicz, who has earlier voiced concerns about landslide risks posed by the steep terrain though which Mountain Valley passes, was reluctant Friday to make too much of this week’s incident.
“A single hydrotest failure doesn’t cause undue alarm to me,” he said. “But the devil is in the details. Why did that pipe fail?”
Kuprewicz said he was confident that an investigation by PHMSA would eventually provide more information about the many unknowns that currently exist.
An official with the safety administration, who asked not to be quoted, said that hydrostatic testing has been suspended while Mountain Valley works to determine the cause of what Cox called a “water release” that was caused by a “hydrotest disruption.”
“PHMSA will continue to ensure the Pipeline is constructed, and ultimately operated, in accordance with Federal pipeline safety statutes and regulations,” the agency official wrote in an email.
Cox said the incident happened about 10 a.m. Wednesday near U.S. 221 in the Bent Mountain community of Roanoke County. No one was injured, she said, and nearby streams that were affected were clear of sediment by Thursday morning.
“Importantly, the disruption of this one hydrotest demonstrates that the testing process is working as designed and intended,” she wrote in an email. “We are committed to ensuring the safe and responsible operation of this project, and the hydrotesting process is an important aspect of preparing this pipeline system to operate safely for decades to come.”
The damaged pipe was dug up and removed from the site as Mountain Valley continues an investigation, she said. The company has reported the incident to PHMSA, FERC and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.
Cox did not provide an exact location of the incident.
But Bent Mountain residents opposed to the pipeline — who have been vigilant over the past six years in monitoring construction and reporting problems — said they believe it happened just off 221 where an access ramp leads to the Blue Ridge Parkway.
That portion of the pipeline, which passes under both the parkway and 221, was constructed in 2018.
After a friend informed her of muddy water in a creek on her nearby property, Kathy Chandler reported the incident to DEQ, saying that she believed it was caused by hydrostatic testing.
An online report from DEQ confirms that the origin of the sediment was “from a rupture of a section of pipe,” and that muddy water had overwhelmed Mountain Valley’s erosion control devices.
By Thursday, construction crews had reconstructed the erosion control measures and removed sediment from nearby property and a wetland, the report stated. DEQ, which is responsible for regulating weather-related problems with erosion, closed its investigation Friday afternoon.
Meanwhile, residents kept a close watch on the spot where they say the incident happened. Mountain Valley crews worked through Thursday night under temporary lighting.
“It was 1 a.m. when I went to bed, and they were still at it,” said Donald Wray, who lives within sight of where the pipeline crosses 221.
Early Friday morning, observers saw that the damaged pipe had been loaded onto a flatbed pulled by tractor-trailer. They reported to others in their group that the truck was headed north on 221.
Grace Terry, who lives in Roanoke and owns land on Bent Mountain, decided to see if she could spot the truck. As she waited near Cave Spring Corner, she saw the truck go by and decided to take photographs of its cargo.
“We didn’t feel like we were getting the real story of what happened,” she said. “Mountain Valley was calling it a water release.”
An image taken by pipeline opponent and Bent Mountain property owner Grace Terry shows the failed section of pipe being hauled away.
Terry’s cellphone photographs of the damaged pipe were shared widely on social media as word of the incident spread.
As she watched construction crews working on property near her home Friday afternoon, Chandler said she has many questions that need to be answered by Mountain Valley and regulatory agencies.
“It is their responsibility to make this project safe,” she said, “so we can all go to sleep at night.”
Laurence Hammack (540) 981-3239