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進入《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》INTERVIEW: Thorough oversight of pipelines is needed: expert
National Taiwan University Institute of Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene professor Wu Kuen-yuh gestures during an interview on Aug. 6. Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
In light of the gas explosions in Greater Kaohsiung on July 31 and Aug. 1 that killed 30 people and injured 310, National Taiwan University Institute of Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene professor Wu Kuen-yuh, in an interview with staff reporter Liu Li-jen of the ‘Liberty Times’ （the sister newspaper of the ‘Taipei Times’）, called on the government to emulate other countries by establishing institutions specifically tasked with oversight and prevention of potential risks to avoid future catastrophes
Liberty Times （LT）: What kind of warning or lesson has the Greater Kaohsiung explosion given us?
Wu Kuen-yuh （吳焜裕）: There are many problems with Greater Kaohsiung’s underground pipelines.
The pipelines involved in the explosion were put down in about 1990. At the time, the only concerns when laying down pipelines were the viability of technology, the lowering of material transfer costs and making greater profits.
The government at the time did not consider the danger the pipelines would pose to residents.
The LCY Chemical Group, for example, should receive its materials directly from the fifth naphtha cracker. It laid down the 4 inch pipe due to worries that the fifth naphtha cracker would not be able to provide the agreed-upon quota of propene, or to purchase cheaper propene from other sources.
There are other pipelines buried under Greater Kaohsiung as well, such as those transporting ethylene, toluene and ethylbenzene, as well as the carcinogenic benzene and vinyl chloride.
At room temperature, ethylene and propene are in a gaseous state. They are transported in great quantity through the pipes after the gas has been rendered into liquid state through high pressure and low temperature. However, the pipe walls need to be thick enough to withstand high pressure. For instance, the pipelines from LCY Chemical should have been capable of withstanding more than 40kg of high pressure. Even the tankers used to transport the gas over highways have to use this kind of technology to store the gas.
Taiwan is often hit by typhoons and earthquakes, giving rise to the need to prevent composite disasters.
For example, if a severe natural disaster occurs, it could damage the pipelines transporting petrochemical substances or natural gas, causing leakages or power outages. It could also lead to the loss of backup power.
Under such circumstances, the tanks holding the gas could suffer a destabilization in pressure, which could exceed the safety threshold and cause the tanks’ safety valves to automatically pop open to release the gas to depressurize the tanks, and the leaked gas could then be ignited by any spark.
Many nations have rules in place that put risk management and urban development side by side. These rules assess the range of impacts on gas pipes and the locations where gas pipes can be laid. The routing of pipes should be regulated through urban planning. It’s certainly one direction to consider when laying down future pipelines.
LT: Should the government make public the location of the pipes? Would it cause the kind of adverse effects the government says it is worried about?
Wu: The government said that if locations of the pipes are made public, it could lead to some people wishing to steal the petrochemical materials pumped through the pipes or even damage the pipes.
However, if the walls of the pipes are thick enough, it is no easy task to siphon off the materials. In addition, the general public would have no need to steal petrochemical materials in the first place. Such comments are most likely governmental efforts to dodge responsibility.
The most elementary information on pipelines, including pipeline distribution, what kind of materials they are carrying, the requirements for starting up the pipelines, the safety checkup data on the pipelines, security facilities and emergency measures, should all be made known to the public.
Take the LCY Chemical Group as an example. Its pipelines had not undergone maintenance for as long as 24 years and an accident was just waiting to happen.
It is regrettable that the tragedy has occurred even though the residents, the police and the fire fighters all smelled the gas, but did not know where it originated, nor that the point of origin was right beneath their feet, causing the golden three-hour period to mitigate the damage caused by the blast to slip by.
The boiling point for propene is minus-48oC. Once the gas has leaked from the pipe, it quickly saturates the culvert and underground tunnels, which is why there were multiple blast points across such a long distance.
If the information had been made available to the public, they would have known who to contact to shut off the valves and stop pumping propene through the pipes, thus averting the disaster.
LT: How have other countries done [regarding the management of the pipes]?
Wu: A number of countries have special task forces tasked with the management and oversight of pipelines, especially in light of urban development. Taking the US as an example, there are 2.6 million miles [4.18km] of pipes in the country and as many as 1,000 tankers on its highways.
The US government has, since 1986, established the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, or PHMSA, specifically tasked with security oversight of pipelines within the US.
The UK passed the Health and Safety at Work Act in 1974 and founded the Health and Safety Executive office to oversee safety of oil and gas pipelines.
These units not only make public the gasline maps and put them on the Internet for better accessibility by the public, but the PHMSA also has a 811 hotline for the public to call in at any time to ask about information on the gas pipelines.
According to PHMSA statistics over the past two decades, 4 or 5 percent of past gas explosions in the US were due to corroded gas pipes, but the majority, 33 percent, were due to gas lines being broken by construction crews.
If citing only data from the past half-decade, the number of broken pipelines by construction crews stands at 22 percent.
The PHMSA had even set a goal of reducing injury and fatality rates due to gas explosions to a range of between 26 and 36 people by 2016.
The primary source of PHMSA’s funding is its users, which means that the companies’ payments to the organization supports the day-to-day finances and running of the department.
LT: What is the current situation of Taiwan’s pipeline management? How can we improve on it?
Wu: We currently do not have any department or unit overseeing pipelines; the government has thus far allowed companies great autonomy in managing their own pipelines. However, no one knows if the companies are actually implementing regular maintenance.
As urban areas grow, we will only see more and more pipelines in the future, especially as natural gas becomes increasingly popular, and there must be a unit that can claim overall jurisdiction, one that can devote time to researching the reasons for gas line explosions. The government must intervene and set up oversight instead of relying on the companies to do so themselves.
To fully ensure the capability of the personnel operating the lines, the PHMSA requires the companies to enact periodic tests for drug or alcohol abuse. If the company has more than 50 personnel, they have to find a qualified unit to conduct the examinations and hand the results to the PHMSA. The PHMSA handles the examinations for all gas line operators with less than 50 staffmembers.
The PHMSA is also tasked with educating operators on what to do during emergencies. The companies know best what state their pipes are in and it makes sense for the companies themselves to handle emergency action during a crisis.
The PHMSA’s Web site promotes all information needed on how to maintain safety on pipelines and is accessible by civilians, corporations and construction companies, as well as other governmental units.
[Any establishment similar to the PHMSA] must provide the people the information on how to maintain safety of pipes and how to handle crises.
I suggest Taiwan establish a similar unit, but not under the Industrial Development Bureau as it runs the risk of letting the bureau be both the player and the referee.
The best governmental unit to establish the department under would be the Ministry of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or the ministry’s Department of Environmental Resources, due to the administration’s job of inspecting all workers, and the toxic chemicals management units under the environmental resources department.
Firefighters are one of the first to be called on to deal with chemical substances, but most of these substances have significant impact on human health and should be monitored long-term.
According to US statistics on firefighters at the scene during the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the US, 18 percent contracted respiratory tract diseases, and more are rumored to have contracted cancer in later years.
During the gas explosions, many people were wearing N-95 medical-grade masks, but such masks are used to filter out dust or germs. They should have used active carbon masks or, [for the fire fighters], wear gas masks to filter out the chemicals.
This is all knowledge that has to be passed on to the various different units by one specific organization.
LT: What is the future of Taiwan’s petrochemical plants?
Wu: Petrochemical companies in earlier years claimed they would strive to become more responsible, but they have done everything to avoid negotiating with the populace, despite importing old technology from other countries and causing great pollution. They have also striven to avoid having their operations overseen.
The government mistook negotiating the risk factors [with the populace] as simple promotion. It has not tried to thoroughly examine the petrochemical industry has harmed people over the past few decades, which is the main cause of discontent.
Since the 1980s, Taiwan has been inviting businesses in the US to set up in Taiwan, telling them that environmental controls would be more relaxed [than in the US]. Although that has caused the nation’s economy to soar, these corporations had no place for social costs in their ledgers.
We have lived [with the petrochemical industry] over the past few decades. Are we really going to keep taking the same road?
I suggest that aside from teaching chemistry and physics majoring students core courses, their curriculum should also include humanitarian concerns as a part of the students’ required courses.
The schools should endeavor to make their students, the future chemical engineers or chemical group investors, more open about their practices and initiate dialogue with the public.
Most importantly, they should strive to teach students how to prioritize the overall safety of chemical plants in society and be environmentally friendly during the design and material selection process.
Only by doing so will Taiwan’s chemical industry continue to persist and endure.
（Translated by staff writer Jake Chung）
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
