PST’s Data Manager James Eager walks us through each state’s pipeline safety track record. Click on the “State of Safety” tag at the bottom of the post to see all of James’s entries to date.
This analysis considers all incidents which occurred in New York over the past full decade of available data (1/1/2014-12/31/2023), regardless if they fall under state or federal jurisdiction.
Quick Facts
From 2014 to 2023, pipelines in New York caused:
- 83 total reported incidents, including:
- 8 Hazardous Liquid incidents
- 13 Gas Transmission incidents
- 62 Gas Distribution incidents
- 42 significant incidents
- 11 incidents ending in injury and/or fatality causing:
- 68 overnight hospitalizations
- 11 fatalities
- 46 incidents resulting in fire and/or explosion
- 1,712 evacuations
- Incidents have released:
- 11,277 gallons of hazardous liquids
- 100,898 thousand cubic feet (mscf) of gas
Incident Breakdown
New York’s incident rate trends below the national incident rate and average of its neighbors (Plot 1). The same trend holds among significant incidents (Plot 2). Along with both incident rates trending lower than their regional counterparts, both rates appear to have declined substantially over the past decade.
As presented in Plots 3 and 4, a Consolidated Edison Company (ConEd) gas distribution incident resulted in $3.5 million of reported damages, the highest damage cost in New York during this period. The incident occurred on March 12, 2014 and its ensuing explosion destroyed two five-story buildings in East Harlem. The explosion killed eight, hospitalized 48, and reported 100 evacuations, per PHMSA incident data. ConEd’s incident report indicated natural force damage, while the NTSB Report notes both a failure of a defective fusion joint installed by ConEd and the aforementioned natural forces. The source of the natural force damage was a breached sewer line that had gone unrepaired by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection since at least 2006. The breach allowed for groundwater and soil to flow into the sewer, resulting in a loss of support for the gas main, which eventually caused increased stress on the defective fusion joint. According to Reuters, as a result of the incident and investigation, ConEd reached a $153.3 million settlement with New York State in 2017.
Of the five costliest incidents since 2010, four were gas distribution incidents and one was a hazardous liquid incident; all five were in New York City. The liquid pipeline failure, which released 10,458 gallons of fuel oil, was caused by external corrosion, which is considered a cause that an operator has direct control over. The four distribution incidents were caused by an external force or “other” reported causes. These are causes an operator has less control over – compared to material failures, for example – and resulted in a combined 10,797 mscf (one mscf equals a thousand standard cubic feet) of natural gas released.
In general, New York incidents are causing less damage than the national average. The average NY incident causes $251,830 of damage compared to $1,119,427 nationwide. Among transmission and liquids pipelines, the incident causes which are more heavily operator-controlled (corrosion, incorrect operation, material failures, and equipment failures) cause far more total damage in New York than other causes. On gas distribution pipelines, incident damage is caused by other outside forces most often – rather than excavation damage. “Other outside forces” account for 41% of distribution incidents, 34% of significant incidents, 38% of the system’s damage cost, and 42% of gas released – all greater proportions than any other cause. Conversely, incidents on liquids and transmission pipelines are more often due to material, weld, or equipment failure (38% of liquid incidents; 61% of transmission).
Operator Analysis
Of the 85 unique pipeline operator IDs in New York, 21 have been responsible for at least one incident since 2010. Four of these 21 operate integrity management programs under a different primary operating ID. In some cases, the relationships between subsidiary and primary are relatively clear, like with subsidiary operators like Enterprise Products Operating LLC and their parent company, Enterprise Holdings. In some cases, the relationship is less obvious, as with Stagecoach Gas Services and Kinder Morgan.
The table below presents selected operators with the most incidents for each system in the state of New York over the 2014–2023 period. The trend column displays their annual incidents from 2014 to 2023, with a yellow point at their maximum and blue point at their minimum. The rows labeled “Other” is an average of the other parent operators for each given system in NY – including those without any incidents during this period. Significant incidents are presented as a percent of total incidents, and incident rates are given as incidents per 1,000 miles. Finally, releases are reported in thousand standard cubic feet (mscf) for gas incidents and gallons (Gal.) for hazardous liquids.
Incidents |
Cost (K, USD) |
Releases |
|||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parent Operator | Mileage | Total | Percent Significant | Rate | Trend | Total | per Incident | Total | per Incident |
| Hazardous Liquids | |||||||||
| BUCKEYE | 639.61 | 4.0 | 50% | 6.25 | 857 | 214 | 348 | 87 | |
| 13 Others (HL, avg.) | 53.61 | 0.3 | 15% | 96.17 | 105 | 105 | 841 | 841 | |
| Gas Distribution | |||||||||
| KEYSPAN ENERGY DELIVERY – NY CITY | 11,779.47 | 22.0 | 59% | 1.87 | 4,191 | 190 | 4,361 | 198 | |
| CONSOLIDATED EDISON CO OF NEW YORK (GD) | 9,336.85 | 17.0 | 47% | 1.82 | 7,810 | 459 | 13,567 | 798 | |
| NATIONAL GRID | 16,269.28 | 10.0 | 70% | 0.61 | 2,159 | 216 | 9,725 | 973 | |
| NY SEG | 8,429.62 | 5.0 | 60% | 0.59 | 918 | 184 | 492 | 98 | |
| CENTRAL HUDSON GAS & ELECTRIC CORP | 2,154.42 | 4.0 | 25% | 1.86 | 902 | 225 | 130 | 33 | |
| 12 Others (GD, avg.) | 1,716.51 | 0.4 | 8% | 14.42 | 70 | 28 | 16 | 6 | |
| Gas Transmission | |||||||||
| KINDER MORGAN | 670.47 | 4.0 | 50% | 5.97 | 1,169 | 292 | 28,549 | 7,137 | |
| CONSOLIDATED EDISON CO OF NEW YORK (GT) | 45.16 | 3.0 | 33% | 66.42 | 203 | 68 | 850 | 283 | |
| 38 Others (GT, avg.) | 61.46 | 0.2 | 3% | 0.46 | 19 | 17 | 1,133 | 675 | |
To offer a holistic view of the relative responsibility of operators in New York, this table can be referenced in conjunction with Plot 6, which looks at each named operator’s incident causes. This matrix highlights that 100% of Kinder Morgan’s five incidents (four transmission; one liquid) were due to material, weld, or equipment failures. Conversely, most other named operators’ incidents are due to causes outside of their direct control. This is partially explained by New York’s extensive gas distribution mileage: gas distribution incidents are typically caused by a person or force outside of the pipeline company’s control (natural forces, outside forces, excavation damage).
Plot 7 sheds some more light on which operators are responsible for some of the state’s most impactful incidents during this period. Using a grouped z-score of incident releases, we can identify which release sizes were well above average per system in the state during this period – as a z-score of 0 denotes the mean release size per system. The largest relative incident in the state was a Consolidated Edison spill on January 4, 2019 in New York City, which released 10,765 mscf of natural gas due to construction causing a nearby street to collapse. Other labeled incidents include those more than five times the average release size for their systems and those with multiple fatalities per PHMSA’s reports.
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