Gas Infrastructure in Mass: A recipe for Disaster?
by Kay Lazar and John Chesto, Boston Globe (Sept 22, 2018) – The gas lines that wend throughout the state, beneath city streets, and into people’s homes are overseen by a patchwork of bureaucracies and a regulatory system that largely trusts utility companies to police themselves. Though such calamities are rare, safety experts and local leaders say the gas industry needs more rigorous, transparent oversight to avoid more disasters….Weimer, of the Pipeline Safety Trust, said gas companies have too much “wiggle room” to develop plans for mitigating risks in their own systems. “There are all these standards written by the industry that are then incorporated in the regulations, and that’s a real problem,” Weimer said. “It’s a rush to the bottom of what the industry will agree to.”
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