Reducing the Cost of Failure: Time is the Unforgiving Enemy during Pipeline Ruptures

The Challenge: Two days before Christmas in 2008, an aging 66-inch water main burst in a major Eastern US city, flooding the area with nearly 50 million gallons of water at 150,000 gallons per minute. Roads transformed into rivers four feet deep, creating whitewater rapids that wrecked cars and smashed buildings. Helicopters, boats, and fire trucks rescued trapped residents and transported them to safety, as utility crews struggled to shut down the ruptured main. With increasing regularity, water main breaks have devastated streets, businesses, and homes in major cities across North America. In each case, utility crews responded almost instantly, deploying to the scene and attempting emergency procedures to shut down the broken water main. However, the severity of flooding and property damage in each case dramatically increased because the responding utility crews lost the battle against the most unforgiving enemy: time. Locating, accessing, and closing all the pipeline valves feeding a broken water main takes much too long in most cases as crews often don't know which valves to open or close, lack accurate asset location and operational status information and even when they do find the right valve, there is a high percentage chance that it just doesn't work. Overcoming the Challenge: Operational intelligence and accurate asset information is the best line of defense to minimize the cost of a pipeline failure. Understanding the operability of control points such as large valves is often the first step of a phased distribution network assessment program. Valves represent system control, allowing the network to operate efficiently, while minimizing damage in the event of a pipeline rupture. Once valve operability has been increased, a phased pipeline inspection program can begin which can include leak detection and visual inspection (during live and shut down conditions). Based on the information obtained about the condition of the pipeline, addition inspections and monitoring technologies can be applied if required. The final stage is to ensure that accurate data points have been captured and mapped into a CMMS/GIS system to ensure future system efficiencies. This presentation will also provide an overview for how the City of Baltimore established a high level of operational intelligence about their water network, which allowed for accurate emergency plans to be developed and ultimately reduced the consequences of a major 72-inch PCCP transmission main failure.