Pipeline Safety Trust History
Impetus for the Pipeline Safety Trust came when these three young men – Liam Wood, Stephen Tsiorvas, and Wade King – were killed by the explosion of the Olympic Pipeline in 1999.
The Pipeline Safety Trust came into being based on the efforts and recommendations of SAFE Bellingham and the families of Liam Wood and Stephen Tsiorvas who were killed in the 1999 explosion. SAFE Bellingham – a grassroots watchdog group concerned with pipeline safety – and the families fought for better pipeline oversight and accident prevention measures. These Bellingham residents made it their number one priority to organize a perpetually funded oversight organization to ensure safer pipelines nationwide. Much of the inspiration for the Pipeline Safety Trust is borrowed from a citizen oversight organization in Alaska that successfully changed oil tanker safety practices after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. The need for the Pipeline Safety Trust gained written support from Washington Governor Gary Locke, the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission, the Washington State Citizens Committee on Pipeline Safety, many local governments, and pipeline safety advocates nationwide.
On June 18, 2003, U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein ordered that four million dollars of the criminal fines imposed as a result of the Bellingham tragedy be awarded as an endowment to fund the Pipeline Safety Trust. Judge Rothstein noted that the Trust, with only 4 million dollars, was like “Bambi taking on Godzilla,” but she chided the pipeline industry to listen to and work with the Pipeline Safety Trust so tragedies like Bellingham do not happen again.
Listen to the moving, evocative Death Cab for Cutie song about the tragedy – “Kids in ’99”
Watch a video about that tragic day – “Disaster Bellingham”
Bellingham’s Pipeline Safety Legacy
Olympic Pipeline Explosion: A Retrospective. WWU, Huxley College’s THE PLANET publication, spring/summer 2000 issue, was dedicated to remembering the Bellingham tragedy a year after it occurred.
For a complete history of the Bellingham pipeline tragedy click here