On September 13, 2018, excessive pressure in natural gas lines owned by Columbia Gas of Massachusetts caused a series of explosions and fires to occur in as many as 40 homes, with over 80 individual fires, in the Merrimack Valley, Massachusetts, towns of Lawrence, Andover, and North Andover. One person was killed and 30,000 were forced to evacuate their homes.

According to the NTSB's preliminary report, customers in the accident area received gas from a low-pressure (0.5 psi) distribution network which, in turn, was fed from a high-pressure (75 psi) main pipeline via regulators controlled by sensors measuring pressure in the low-pressure pipes. At the time of the accident, workers were replacing some of the low-pressure piping, but the procedure set out by Columbia Gas for doing this failed to include transfer of a regulator's pressure sensor from the old, disused piping to the new. As a result, when the old pipe was depressurized, the regulator sensed zero pressure on the low-pressure side and opened completely, feeding the main pipeline's full pressure into the local distribution network.^[8]

Similarly, and ironically, a gas regulator malfunction also caused a major gas incidence in East Boston back in 1983.

Problems: The federal code and state laws seem to be adequate governing the safety of gas lines. But begs for the question that why the same engineering mistakes were made in wrongly using gas regular and/or gas sensor in different gas companies? What other steps need to be in place to prevent the next catastrophic event from happening again?

Petition Sign-up --- Build a form to allow online sign-up.

2018 Merrimack Valley Gas Explosions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrimack_Valley_gas_explosions

1983 Gas Explosion at East boston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Boston_gas_surge

MGL §164_Section 105(a) Related to safety of gas pipe lines https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXXII/Chapter164/Section105A