Two pipeline accidents made the news this week. A Houston based energy firm shut down its pipeline when it suddenly lost pressure Friday evening. Eight thousand gallons of jet fuel spilled into the St. Mary's River near Decatur, Indiana. Booms were placed in the river to collect the fuel and it was vacuumed off the waters surface, but clean-up could take weeks according to the mayor. EPA is monitoring contamination downstream and in the air near the river. The spill is the second one in six months in Indiana. A pipeline owned by Marathon Oil spilled 42,000 gallons of diesel fuel into Big Creek in Posey Creek, Indiana in March.
The a newly installed gas pipeline exploded into flames in the remote Nixon Ridge area of Marshall County, West Virginia. The pipeline is owned by the same company building the Keystone Pipeline, Trans Canada. The explosion left a large crater and affected ten acres. When the Leach Xpress was opened in January, Trans Canada CEO Russ Girling said the project represented "a truly best in class pipeline". There have been 1300 pipeline spills in the US since 2010, averaging one per day.