I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
A gas pipeline fire near the intersection of Golf Course Road and Paseo del Norte in Albuquerque Wednesday may have resulted from a short in an adjacent PNM electrical line, state Pipeline Safety Bureau (PSB) investigators suspect — and probably was not the immediate fault of a backhoe destroyed in the blaze, as initially reported by local television news.
Although it appears the backhoe was responsible for digging a trench along the electrical line and gas pipeline, the backhoe was not the immediate cause of the fire, PSB chief Jason N. Montoya told The Independent Friday.
“The backhoe had not been operational since Monday. It was in a locked position with foot pedestals down so it couldn’t be stolen,” Montoya said. “Whether the backhoe nicked the electrical line earlier on is an unknown. Everything’s melted, so it’s going to be very tough to determine what happened.”
More than 2,000 electricity customers in the Taylor Ranch neighborhood reportedly experienced a power outage at or just prior to the time of the pipeline fire. Gas service to fewer than 50 homes in the immediate area was cut off within two hours of the fire being reported at 5:45 p.m. Wednesday.
“(T)he electrical conduit is maybe two or three feet from New Mexico Gas Company‘s natural gas pipeline,” Montoya said. “They’re usually buried three or four feet down, but had been exposed in a trench.”
One likely cause of the fire was an electrical short in the exposed electrical line, Montoya confirmed — though the cause of such a short would not be easy to determine, he added.
“I was told there was a loss of power in the area, just prior to the gas igniting, but that’s a rumor at this point,” he said.
But if the electrical line shorted and caused the polyethylene natural gas pipeline to melt, a brief electrical outage might be expected, he said.
“(W)e’re not eliminating third-party damage as a cause because if five years ago somebody dug it up and nicked the electrical line without reporting it, there may have been corrosion that led to the short,” Montoya speculated. “We don’t know if that may have happened here.”
Detecting corrosion in electrical lines is very expensive, Montoya said. Companies tend to wait until a fault is detected to locate and repair corrosion.
PNM and New Mexico Gas Company will conduct investigations into the fire’s causes, Montoya said.
“The downtime to the customers plus crew time and repairs can get pretty expensive, not to mention the contractor probably wants to recover the costs on the backhoe,” Montoya said.
PSB has not yet determined whether any citations or notices of probable safety violations will be issued, Montoya said. The fire resulted in no injuries or other property damage, he noted.
PNM officials did not return calls for comment by mid-afternoon Friday.
Contacted by phone Friday afternoon, employees at a Circle K and Wells Fargo Bank at the intersection confirmed seeing flames and hearing about the fire Wednesday evening, but could not confirm reports of gas or electrical outages at the time of the fire.
New Mexico has the most lethal pipeline safety record in the U.S., The Independent reported July 29.
The state Public Regulation Commission (PRC) recently fined PNM a record $371,000 for safety violations related to a potentially explosive natural gas 2008 pipeline leak that went unrepaired for two months at a busy intersection in Albuquerque.
