What’s up with DPS?
This is a paper I just finished up on the Department of Pipeline Security.
Setting
The Department of Pipeline Safety (DPS), part of the Department of Transportation, is in charge of overseeing more than 2 million miles of underground pipeline in the US. Included in this total are 300,000 miles of natural gas pipeline, and 1.5 million miles of smaller distribution lines. In 1999, DPS had a $34 million annual budget, and 105 employees to see over this vast pipeline system (this is actually two times what the budget and employee numbers were back in 1994)[i]. Funding for DPS comes from fees that are collected from the gas and oil industries, not from the taxpayers[ii].
There are a total of 55 inspectors, nationwide, who actually “inspect” the 2 million miles of pipelines. These inspectors are supposed to make sure that local regulators of the pipelines are following federal standard for pipeline safety. The only way to know if DPS is actually doing what they are supposed to do, is to look at the total number of accidents and deaths, concerning pipelines, for any given year, or month, and compare it to past years or months.
I would classify DPS as a procedural agency[iii]. The managers can easily see what their inspectors are doing; therefore, the outputs can clearly be seen. In other words, the inspectors have a lot of standard operating procedures that they follow in order to enforce safety. However, the outcomes are difficult to see. In fact, the only time someone can see an outcome is when there are lapses in safety, such as pipeline explosions. This is the setting for an explosion in Bellingham, WA, that resulted in 3 deaths. The deaths occurred on a pipeline owned by Olympic Pipe Line Company[iv].
Failure
The failure of DPS comes on a couple of different levels. The first one I would like to address is big oil. The funders of DPS are, as mentioned before, the oil and gas industries. These industries are very large, and have a lot of pull, on any platform. As such, I think they have been key contributors in the actual standard operating procedures. I feel that because these industries are paying their fees, they are able to reduce other types of business costs, such as replacing old pipes. In fact, there are no age limits on the existing pipelines. To give a little more oomph to my theory, the general manager of pipelines actually said, “The term age is a misnomer. You have an asset that has been continuously maintained, in the case of Olympic, for 30 years. Pipe that is continuously maintained, it can be acceptable for a long period of time[v].”
The second problem I see here is the lack of inspectors. There are only 55 inspectors for 50 states[vi]. The closest inspector to Washington State is actually in Denver, CO. In fact, 8 of the 55 inspectors are based in Denver. I just don’t see this as very effective. There is clearly a problem here with inspectors being able to do what they need to do…
Lastly, DPS has been very slow to make any improvements on their system. They have been putting on the best public face they can by saying things like, ‘We are working harder then we have ever worked before to ensure public safety.’ How broad can you get? Let’s face it, working hard and working smart, are two different things.
Oversight
Authority is definitely not a problem with DPS. The inspectors can give fines when there are lapses, as well as shut down pipes if needed. Though I do wonder if there is pressure from the oil and gas industries to keep these to a minimum. The biggest contributor to the way things have been playing out is in the application of oversight. All that DPS does is oversight. They are understaffed and can’t oversee everything in an effective manner. In most cased, the inspectors, in their reports, found nothing to say about the pipelines they inspected, or better yet, they noted that certain manuals were not up to date? The question I have, then, is ‘What are they inspecting?’ The number of incidents is on the rise, and the inspectors are saying the pipes are great! Something doesn’t add up. The bottom line is, whatever the inspectors are looking for are not a factor in determining if the pipe is going to be safe or not. Going along these same lines, the technology that existed at the time of the explosion in Bellingham didn’t detect the types of things that most commonly caused leaks to occur.
Culture
The whole agency is stuck in doing things they way they have always done them. I feel like this agency, along with a lot of other public agencies, is ill-equipped to become an innovator simply because they can’t. The culture of the place doesn’t allow that to happen.
The culture here could very well be one of safety-first. I think, however, as I mentioned above, that the agency is too conservative in nature. There is also no real incentive to change. The results cannot be directly measured. Therefore the inspectors don’t have any reason to go the extra mile to find possible problems in the pipes. So, when you get down to the bottom here, the culture I see is simply ‘get your job done and go home.’
Perspective
DPS is constrained, in large part, by not only their budget, but also by the federal government. The money DPS does get is not enough to deal with their agenda. The funds allocated to DPS are limiting, not only the number of available employees/inspectors that can be hired, but also the R & D necessary to conduct research to the real causes of the leaks and the technology to detect these things on a massive scale. The federal government is not putting enough emphasis on this particular area.
The funding comes from the oil and gas industries. This limits DPS on a couple of fronts. First of all, because the money comes from these industries, I think DPS (as well as the feds) feels they need to make concessions on other things to appease them. This definitely limits the agency being able to promote safety. Also, the federal government is pushing to make the fees bigger for the industry to increase the funding. I totally disagree with this. I think the burden should be spread out, even more diffusely, to the public.
Remedy
My suggestion here is to cut ties with the gas and oil industry, when it comes to fees. Put the burden on the public. This will increase the funds available as well as eliminate any concessional ties to the industries. As a result in the increase of funds for DPS, they should hit the R & D hard to create technology that is able to detect the known causes of leaks.
Next, there should be guidelines given to the pipe line companies. These would include replacement of pipes older than 20 years, as well as the installation of equipment that detects leaks. Then there should be deadlines to install these, based on the amount of work that needs to be done and heavy fines implemented if there is a failure to meet these deadlines.
[i] Seattle PI “Tighter pipeline safeguards have been slow in coming,” Seattle PI Online (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/pipelines/regu12.shtml, 12 August, 1999), 7 November, 2008
[ii] Seattle PI “Pipeline safety chief defends work of agency,” Seattle PI Online (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/pipelines/ops12.shtml, 12 August, 1999), 7 November, 2008
[iii] James Wilson, Bureaucracy (Basic Books, 1989), 163-164.
[iv] Seattle PI “Small Olympic backed by big money,” Seattle PI Online (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/pipelines/oly121.shtml, 12 August, 1999), 7 November 2008
[v] Seattle PI “With aging lines and lax regulation, potential for accidents is high,” Seattle PI Online (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/pipelines/old10.shtml, 10 August 1999) 7 November, 2008
[vi] “Tighter pipeline safeguards…” (same as first source)
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Tags: Bureaucracy, Department of Pipeline Security, Disaster, DPS, Failure, Red Tape
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