A few weeks ago, Springfield, MA, was rocked by a natural gas explosion that destroyed a building, ruined a city block, and was hailed as a miracle because no lives were lost.

The pipelines that lie below our communities, always out of sight, came suddenly came into focus. The explosion reminded us of the sobering reality that our streets are not always safe. Despite smart investments in energy efficiency and new energy technologies in New England, when it comes to natural gas, whose infrastructure is among the oldest in the nation, we have been reluctant to prioritize investment in replacing and repairing the pipes and valves that we rely upon not only to heat and power our homes, but to keep us safe.  When it comes to natural gas efficiency and investment, there is much more we can do – so much more.

We need to improve safety, increase efficiency, and reduce the risk to communities and to our planet. It is my belief, as well as that of my colleagues here at CLF, that we can and should make our communities healthy and safe from the unnecessary risk of explosions from old and leaky pipelines. This is vital, for two reasons.

It’s vital because methane, the major component of natural gas, is 25 times more potent as a global-warming causing gas than CO2. In a year that has broken so many temperature records, and in an age when climate is showing the signs of human distortion, we are constantly reminded of the strain we are placing on our global ecosystem. It is a strain we need to urgently reduce.

It is also vital to replace and fix pipes leaking natural gas because it is so combustible. Springfield reminded us of this fact. So too did the explosions that that rocked San Bruno, California in 2010, Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 2011, and Gloucester, MA in 2009, and most recently, Sissonville, West Virginia, to name only a few. These explosions are reminders of the serious care and attention that our natural gas infrastructure needs. If we fail to provide them with that care, we gamble with our safety, and with our lives, as this image from the San Bruno explosion vividly shows.

As my colleague Shanna Cleveland recently said, “The need for action is particularly acute in Massachusetts where over one-third of the system is considered ‘leak-prone’—made up of cast iron or unprotected steel pipe.” The leaks in Massachusetts are so significant that the gains by efficiency programs put in place by Massachusetts regulators are disappearing into thin air. A report released by CLF by that name (Into Thin Air, available to download for free here) documents how these leaks, known as “fugitive emissions,” are being borne not by the utilities, or by the regulators, but by consumers. Utilities pass the cost of lost gas onto ratepayers to the tune of $38.8 million a year. Here’s an infographic from that report:

Another report by Nathan Phillips of Boston University combines Google Earth and research into a compelling visualization of just how prevalent these leaks are.

Like the explosion in Springfield, Nathan’s map documenting the 3,356 separate natural gas leaks under the streets of Boston reminds us that, as we walk or drive down the street, we are often driving through an invisible cloud of natural gas leaking from aging pipes. If you are like me, to accept the avoidable risk of a predictably volatile gas is deeply unsettling.

With the exuberance for cheap, domestic natural gas on the rise, proposals for new massive interstate pipelines are in the works. Houston-based Spectra, a natural gas pipeline company, is proposing a $500 million expansion for Massachusetts alone. Before we go down that route, I would like to make three simple suggestions.

1) Whether the natural gas industry ever delivers on its claim of being more environmentally friendly than coal or oil depends on how well natural gas infrastructure addresses leaks. We develop more accurate tools for assessing the greenhouse gas emissions from pipelines.

2) Not only is investment in new pipelines and power plants expensive, but it comes with serious and lasting environmental consequences whose costs are too often discounted or ignored.  Before we blindly rush ahead with investments to expand, we need to look closely at the full range of costs.

3) Finally, we would do well to remember the lessons we have learned so well about the environmental and financial benefits of looking to efficiency first. Efficiency, both in the traditional sense of reducing our use of natural gas, and in the sense of maximizing the efficiency of our existing natural gas infrastructure by replacing outdated infrastructure and repairing leaks will reduce risk, reduce costs, reduce environmental impacts and put people to work throughout the region.

As the explosions in San Bruno, Gloucester, Allentown, and Springfield have reminded us, this is about the safety of our communities. We should not let promises of short-term profit in new projects trump both the near-term risk of thousands of leaks and the long-term sustainability of this region and stability of our climate.

Ignoring leaky natural gas infrastructure is risky business. Let’s fix what we have, and maximize our efficiency gains, before aggressively expanding. We’ll be more sustainable, and safer, that way.

On the day after Thanksgiving, an explosion shook the City of Springfield. A natural gas pipeline leak led to the explosion that injured eighteen people and brought down two buildings.  The details behind the cause of this explosion are still being pieced together, but  once again, public confidence has been shaken in the pipeline system that is supposed to transport natural gas safely and reliably to homes, businesses and institutions in communities throughout the nation. Today, CLF is releasing a report on the importance of addressing problems with our aging, leaky natural gas  infrastructure. (You can download a free copy of that report here, and find the press release here.)

In Massachusetts, local distribution companies operate almost 21,000 miles of pipeline—that’s almost enough pipe to encircle the earth. But people seldom give much thought to those pipes that are running beneath their homes, beneath their businesses and beneath their feet.

That has been changing since the explosions that rocked San Bruno, California in 2010 and Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 2011. Shortly afterwards, the Secretary of the Department of Transportation issued a national “Call to Action” to address pipeline safety, but there are still many hurdles to be overcome. One of the toughest obstacles to tackle is the replacement of aging, leak-prone pipelines and the swift repair of leaks on the system. Public safety is the primary driver behind the repair and replacement of aging pipes, but it is also important to recognize the added benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, conserving a valuable resource, and reducing ratepayer costs.

The need for action is particularly acute in Massachusetts where over one-third of the system is considered “leak-prone”—made up of cast iron or unprotected steel pipe. According to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, 50% of the cast iron left on the United States distribution system is centered in only four states: Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. Though Massachusetts regulators have been working to find solutions to this problem, there is more to be done.

This infographic underscores the need for additional work in Massachusetts. So significant are the leaks that the gains from efficiency programs put in place by Massachusetts regulators have been overwhelmed by the amount of gas lost through leaky pipes. The costs of those leaks are being borne not by the utilities, or by the regulators, but by consumers. Utilities pass the cost of lost gas onto ratepayers to the tune of $38.8 million a year.

“Fugitive emissions from aging gas pipelines across Massachusetts are polluting our environment – releasing more greenhouse gases than we are saving through all of our energy efficiency efforts,” said D. Michael Langford, national president of the Utility Workers Union of America. “This is problematic for the environment and the economy, but fixing this problem provides an important opportunity. Putting people to work fixing leak-prone pipelines will save Massachusetts ratepayers money by simultaneously modernizing our pipe infrastructure, improving efficiency and helping to protect the environment.”

Fortunately, there are some clear policy options that could be implemented relatively quickly to prevent this valuable resource from endangering the public and vanishing into thin air.  ”The good news is that not only would these policies increase public safety and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but they also provide an opportunity to create good, local jobs,” according to Cindy Luppi, New England Director of Clean Water Action.  As she points out, “local neighborhoods, as well as first responders, will bear the brunt of impacts if this aging system experiences an explosion.   We hope all public officials will embrace real solutions that value health and safety, ratepayer equity and climate leadership.”

As outlined in our report, Into Thin Air, CLF is advocating for five specific policies to accelerate the replacement of aging pipe and ensure that existing pipeline is properly examined and repaired:

1)    Establishing Leak Classification and Repair Timelines that provide a uniform system for classifying leaks according to level of hazard and require repair within a specified time;

2)    Limiting or Ending Cost Recovery for Lost and Unaccounted for Gas so that companies have an incentive to identify the causes of lost gas and prevent them;

3)    Expanding existing replacement programs and adding performance benchmarks;

4)    Changing Service Quality Standards to include requirements for reducing leaks on the system;

5)    Enhancing monitoring and reporting requirements to give the public and regulators more information.

Over the coming months, we’ll be working with our allies at Clean Water Action and the BlueGreen Alliance to raise public awareness about the need to tackle this issue. We’ll also work with communities to make sure they know how to identify and report gas leaks and talk with them about the benefits of policies that make for a safer, cleaner natural gas system. If you’re interested in joining us, please contact me at scleveland@clf.org.

Protesters against Keystone XL - November 6, 2011 (photo credit: flickr/tarsandsaction)

Last week, a major disaster for our climate and our nation’s clean energy future was averted – at least for now – when the Obama administration announced that it won’t consider approving the Keystone XL pipeline’s border crossing permit before it reconsiders the Keystone XL pipeline’s environmental impacts and the potential alternatives to the proposal on the table.  For all the reasons that my colleague Melissa Hoffer articulated in her post last week, the Keystone XL victory was a resounding, if limited, triumph with important lessons for environmental and climate advocates across the country as we confront, one battle at a time, the seemingly overwhelming challenge of solving the climate crisis.

The Keystone XL decision also hits home in another way. It sends an unmistakable signal that the federal government’s review process for New England’s own international energy proposal – the Northern Pass transmission project – needs the same type of new direction.

The parallels between the State Department’s Keystone XL environmental review and the mishandled first year of the U.S. Department of Energy’s review of Northern Pass are striking. In both cases, we saw:

• Troubling, improperly close relationships between the developer and the supposedly independent contractors conducting the environmental review, with unfair and inappropriate developer influence on the review’s trajectory, undermining the public legitimacy of the review process;
• An extraordinary grassroots uprising against the proposal from diverse groups of residents, landowners, communities, businesses, and conservation and environmental groups;
• Massively expensive lobbying and public relations campaigns by proponents designed to confuse and mislead lawmakers and the public
• Repeated failures by permitting agencies to ensure fair, open, and truly comprehensive review of the full range of impacts, including climate impacts, and the reasonable alternatives for meeting our energy needs in other, less environmentally damaging ways.

With all the legal, procedural, and substantive deficiencies our national advocate colleagues have been pointing out for years, the Keystone XL review (before last week) is a dramatic example of what we can’t allow to happen with Northern Pass. Right now, things don’t look good – it appears that the Department of Energy is engaging in an “applicant-driven,” narrow review of a few potential project routes, not the broad, searching analysis CLF and many others have demanded again and again (and again).  Last week’s decision to conduct a wide-ranging new review of Keystone XL shows that there is still the opportunity (and now a clear precedent) for the Department of Energy to bring the same spirit of renewed scrutiny and public responsiveness to its review of Northern Pass.

New Hampshire and New England deserve an impartial, comprehensive, and rigorous review of the Northern Pass project – and all reasonable alternatives – by the permitting agencies entrusted with protecting the public interest. Indeed, what we need now is a serious regional plan that addresses whether and how best to import more Canadian hydropower into New England and the northeastern U.S. With huge projects like Keystone XL and Northern Pass on the table, our nation’s energy future is at stake, and it has never been more important – for our communities, economy, natural environment, and climate – to get it right.

For more information about Northern Pass, sign-up for our monthly newsletter Northern Pass Wire, visit CLF’s Northern Pass Information Center (http://www.clf.org/northernpass), and take a look at our prior Northern Pass posts on CLF Scoop.

CLF's Melissa Hoffer at the No XL Rally Washington DC

And we did—at least for now.

The Keystone XL pipeline, proposed to be constructed by TransCanada, would bring 900,000 barrels per day of toxic tar sands oil 1,702 miles across six states and through the Ogallala Aquifer—which supports $20 billion in food and fiber production in the U.S. annually—from Alberta, Canada to Texas refineries.

On Thursday, the State Department announced that it would be delaying its decision on whether to grant a key permit that would allow the Keystone XL pipeline project to proceed, stating that alternative routes that would avoid the Sand Hills in Nebraska must be studied in order to move forward with a National Interest Determination for the Presidential Permit.  The State Department also announced that it will be examining “environmental concerns (including climate change), energy security, economic impacts, and foreign policy.”  Nested in that parenthetical is a big victory for all of us who have been urging the federal government to review the project’s potential to contribute substantially to global warming pollution.

President Obama issued a statement supporting the decision noting that the permit decision could affect the health and safety of the American people as well as the environment.  Today’s decision will push back completion of the additional environmental review process until at least early 2013. Following the announcement, TarSandsAction.org. spokesperson, Bill McKibben, declared, “It’s important to understand how unlikely this victory is. Six months ago, almost no one outside the pipeline route even knew about Keystone. One month ago, a secret poll of “energy insiders” by the National Journal found that “virtually all” expected easy approval of the pipeline by year’s end…A done deal has come spectacularly undone.”  Spectacularly undone, indeed.

The movement that has built up around Keystone holds lessons for climate and environmental advocates.  This is not the environmentalism of the 70s.  Last Sunday, I traveled with a group of friends to Washington DC where I joined thousands of other Americans to form a human circle around the White House and ask President Obama to deny the Keystone XL pipeline permit.  The event was organized by TarSandsAction.org, and at the pre- and post-circle rallies, we heard from Roger Toussaint, international vice president of the Transport Workers Union, who reminded us that this is not a labor versus environment issue.  Tom Poor Bear, vice president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, asked us to take heart in the fact that all races and men and women alike were joining together to fight this battle.  Naomi Klein (see her recent article Capitalism vs. the Climate) passionately relayed how hard people are working in Canada to stop the pipeline and its destruction of indigenous lands, and promised that if we work together and stop it here, our Canadian compatriots would stop it there; her thoughts were echoed by her countrywoman, Maude Barlow.  NASA climate scientist Dr. James Hansen, who has for decades urged action to control greenhouse gas emissions, again called for action to reduce dangerously high levels of global warming pollution before it is too late.

Physicians for Social Responsibility warned that the human health impacts we already are experiencing from climate change are significant and growing—the World Health Organization estimates that there are 160,000 additional deaths annually around the world attributable to climate change.  John Bolenbaugh, a union worker who has blown the whistle on the failed Enbridge Energy oil spill “cleanup” in Michigan, cautioned that we should not believe TransCanada’s assurances of safety, pointing out the nation’s dismal record on pipeline spills.  (Enbridge, by the way, is proposing to construct the Trailbreaker pipeline that would bring tar sands oil from Alberta to Portland, Maine via Montreal.)

Farmers in the region where Keystone is proposed to be constructed called on us to help them protect their land and the Ogallala Aquifer through which the pipeline will run, placing this precious water source at great risk of irreversible contamination.  Cherri Foytlin of the Gulf Coast spoke movingly about just how wrongly things can go—she reported that dead wildlife, including fish, dolphins, and birds, continue to wash ashore there on a daily basis, coated with oil from the BP spill, and that fresh, wet oil is washed in on the waves, while people continue to get sick from exposure to the oil and chemicals used to control it.  “Our divers who dove into the spill, “she said, “are on their deathbeds.”  Representatives of the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, and NRDC founder John Adams, each spoke about Keystone’s impact on the environment, and the potential for climate change to bring about the next, and sixth greatest, extinction event in the planet’s history.

The scale of the climate emergency is paralyzing for many.  Now, we can actually see what climate change looks like, in the form of record-breaking Spring floods in 2010 throughout New England, a tornado that killed four people this spring in Western Massachusetts, the devastation wrought by Hurricane Irene (especially in Connecticut, Vermont, and Western Massachusetts), and just days ago, a record breaking late October snowstorm that left millions without power (again) as heavy wet snow snapped tree trunks and limbs, many still bearing green leaves.  These weather patterns, as msnbc recently reported, are consistent with the predicted trends for our region as the climate warms, and extreme weather is already costing us billions in response costs.  Everywhere people are talking about these unprecedented weather events, yet many still do not understand or acknowledge that climate change is the cause.  For those who do, the realization is accompanied by a bewildering sense of both the urgency and enormity of the problem, for every aspect of our modern, energy-dependent lifestyles contributes to planet-warming pollution.

But like most very difficult problems, we will solve this one step at a time, and killing Keystone is a very good step, since it will make it that much harder for TransCanada to tap and sell one of the largest remaining oil reserves in the world.  Keystone XL is the poster child for what we should not be doing.  Transportation sector emissions, for example, constitute about a third of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), and in New England, that sector is the fastest growing source of GHG.  We need to be moving away from high carbon fuels, like tar sands, to low carbon fuels.  Because it is such a dirty fuel source, according to NRDC, replacing three million barrels per day of conventional oil with tar sands oil would be equivalent to adding more than 22 million passenger cars to our roads. The environmental impact statement for Keystone (which did not adequately account for lifecycle GHG pollution) estimated that the project would emit in the range of 12-23 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents annually—on par with the emissions from two to four coal fired power plants, according to TarSandsAction.org. Quite simply, that is obscene.

The Keystone movement is a model of what we will need to do if we are to succeed in the fight to take back our environment and restore the climate.  We will need to work together, across political lines, across the borders real or imagined that often separate us, finding and holding that common thread that weaves us together:  our knowledge that we are in the fight of our lives and our commitment to win it, whatever it takes.  Climate change is not in the national interest.