Natural Gas Explosion - AZ 1

[azcats]

This was within a mile of my house.

Caused by 'human reporting error' that misidentified an existing pipe that should/would have been replaced.

https://www.azfamily.com/video/raw-...deo_a1e34c9c-15c4-5d2a-a090-376e6f96aa51.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiXk5iyfumM

https://www.azfamily.com/news/atf-c...cle_f9e29d56-0a8c-11ec-a8a7-5b3a8fdfa952.html

https://www.azcentral.com/story/new...eporting-error-says-southwest-gas/5773261001/

 

[1503-44]

Glad to hear that you were not involved. Sorry for those that were.
I remember when Driscoll 8000 came on the market and ... how it would not rust away like steel pipe.

 

[FacEngrPE]

Another case of mercaptan being neutralization by passage through soil.

Depending upon the facts and circumstances surrounding the escape of natural gas (i.e. rate of leak, amount of soil through which the gas must pass, etc.), certain types of soil — clay being the worst — can remove some or all of any odorant from the natural gas for a period of time.

 

[1503-44]

Yes. Good point. Soil, esp clay, is a very good filter and will retain much of anything passing through it until the soil becomes saturated. Mercapten is a heavy, so it is well suited to be trapped in soil. Only after saturation will any excess oderant make its way through with the gas, possibly only to begin saturating the next soil layer while the lighter unoderized gas goes right up to the surface. Actually a good reason not to use clay for backfilling a gas pipe trench.

 

[azcats]

I would curious how the gas could build up w/o the odor.

 

[davidbeach]

Haven't clicked on any of the links, but if it was gas transmission, rather than local distribution, my understanding is that there wouldn't be any mercapten anyway.

I’ll see your silver lining and raise you two black clouds. - Protection Operations

 

[cvg]

I live close by also. as far as I could tell from the local news, it was a service line which leaked into the building and blew the lid off. note that the soil in the area is not clay, it is mostly sand

 

[itsmoked]

david; Click on all of them. They're clean and very interesting.

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[1503-44]

It's a local distribution incident. Oderant is introduced at the town border stations.
They should have smelled the oderant. Maybe some other strong smelling solvent used in the printing process obscured it.