Poison gas flowing through pipelines in Texas

[Bob Of Burleson]

More Pipelines in Texas for a Smelly, Deadly Gas

By Dave Fehling
The Texas Tribune

Hydrogen sulfide — the gas that smells like rotten eggs — can be insidious in its lethality. Its odor will be unmistakeable to its victim. But the gas can quickly numb the sense of smell, leading to the belief that the threat has passed. Unconsciousness and death can follow.

“Unfortunately, if you come in contact with hydrogen sulfide there are not a lot of second chances,” said Sheldon McKee, director of business development at AMGAS. The Canadian company makes equipment to remove hydrogen sulfide in the oilfields where it can be a deadly risk for workers.

AMGAS opened an office last year in San Antonio to serve what the company sees as a growing need. Drilling for oil has surged just south of San Antonio in a swath of rural counties that comprise the Eagle Ford Shale. It’s an area known for what’s called “sour gas”: natural gas and crude oil with high amounts of hydrogen sulfide. Sour gas can also be found in parts of West Texas and in East Texas.

“The one thing that’s really changing in Texas is a lot of the oil is being moved by truck and rail. Now you have introduced a release point of the hydrogen sulfide. So it’s just kind of how the boom has happened,” McKee told StateImpact.

According to federal statistics, hydrogen sulfide has killed 10 workers in Texas in the past decade. They included drivers of tanker trucks hauling hazardous waste as well as a worker in a gas processing plant.

Another measure of the increased need to handle hydrogen sulfide gas is the number of applications for pipeline permits coming before the Railroad Commission of Texas. The permits are sought by oil & gas well operators who need to move sour gas from well sites to processing plants. Those facilities remove the hydrogen sulfide, making the gas “sweet” and therefore acceptable to be sent to pipelines that feed the natural gas market.

In 2009, Railroad Commission approved four such applications. In 2011, the number shot up to 18. The commission has now approved a total of 42 hydrogen sulfide pipelines in the past five years. There have been no applications denied.

That was the case last month when commissioners approved an 11-mile hydrogen sulfide gas pipeline that will run past 25 homes and 15 public roads near the town of Levelland, just west of Lubbock. According to testimony from the commission’s staff, those homes and roads are within the “radius of exposure” should the gas leak.

MORE

[Red Oak]

How many people has Water killed in the last ten years ?

[John in Plano]

How many people has Water killed in the last ten years ?

a lot

From 2005-2009, there were an average of 3,533 fatal unintentional drownings (non-boating related) annually in the United States — about ten deaths per day. An additional 347 people died each year from drowning in boating-related incidents.

[Chlorine Tinsley]

How many people has Water killed in the last ten years ?

How many people have died due to intentionally sucking poison gas into their lungs via cigarettes?

[Dancer]

If the motoring public had any idea of what was being shipped via truck each day, they would stay off the road in fear. Everything that can and will kill you from in an instant to a while is on trucks with us everyday. How do you think radioactive stuff is shipped? That is sent in steel containers on trailers and rail all the time. next time your stuck in traffic next to a tank trailer look at the diamond shaped placards on it. Red is usually some kind of liquid than can burn or blow up. Some say Poison, some Corrosive, some Radioactive and others Explosive. The list goes on and on.