08:47 PM CST on Tuesday, November 6, 2007

An emergency order issued Tuesday by the Texas Railroad Commission is forcing natural gas utilities to dig up and replace older compression-style couplings.
The order came after a News 8 investigation that documented explosion cases dating back to 1980 that led to injury or death. The explosions occurred after compression couplings failed.
While the move will likely cost Atmos Energy tens of millions of dollars, it could also save lives.
In October of last year, Benny and Martha Cryer of Wylie were burned to death when gas leaked out of a compression coupling, into the their home and exploded.
Since that time, News 8 found a mountain of evidence that the gas company and the Railroad Commission either knew or should have known about the compression couplings. The couplings use only a rubber seal to hold the gas pipe in place and have a tendency to pull out.
Earlier this year, the Railroad commissioners ordered that the couplings be inventoried and studied.
However, a few weeks later, two more people died when gas leaked from a faulty coupling in Cleburne causing another house explosion and killing two more people.
Tuesday, the Railroad commissioners voted two to one to order an estimated 100,000 unsafe couplings pulled out of the ground immediately.
The coupings affected are the ones attached to gas meters, typically those installed in during the '50s, '60s and '70s.
Railroad Commissioner Michael L. Williams said it was his decision to have the couplings removed and hinted it had nothing to do with the News 8 investigation.
"Over the course of time, you have to go back and look at the system," he said. "You have to go back and look at your regulatory and safety regime. You've got to make improvements to it, and that's what we did today."

07:42 AM CST on Wednesday, February 13, 2008

AUSTIN — Beginning in October 2006 and within a span of seven months, four people were killed and five injured in three separate house explosions.
In all three cases, natural gas had leaked out of a particular style of pipe connector that WFAA-TV discovered has a fatal legacy of failure.
A report just released by the Texas Railroad Commission Safety Division finds that the concerns over non-restraint compression couplings attached to natural gas pipes are justified.
While only two percent of all reported gas leaks are related to compression coupling failures, TRC Chairman Michael Williams says that's enough to be concerned.
"We are always concerned anytime there's an incident that causes serious bodily injury or death or damage to property," Williams said. ""We are concerned after it happensm and we are concerned before, in trying to prevent it."
TRC Safety Director Mary McDaniel spent nine months gathering information about the use of nearly 800,000 compression couplings still in the ground in Texas.
She determined that there can be a variety of reasons why some of the connections fail, including "third party damage," the most frequently-cited cause.
A "change in soil ocnditions" was behind the Wiley explosion that killed Benny and Martha Cryer in 2006, according to the report.
But the common thread in all of the cases is this:
"Compression fittings failed to provide adequate restraint in all conditions".

As a result, McDaniel recommends all non-restraint compression couplings still in the ground must come out once they are located. The decision could result in tens of millions of dollars in extra costs for gas companies like Atmos.

Safety officials believe it's worth the money and effort to save lives.
Commissioners will vote on those recommendations in two weeks.