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Energy/ Environment
Report raises gas utility safety issues
Says National Grid is struggling to address leaks
Colin A. Young and
Bruce Mohl	Charlie Baker, Energy	0 Comments Jan 31, 2020
State House News Service and CommonWealth
A PANEL REVIEWING the physical integrity and safety of the state's natural gas distribution system found a gap exists between the way gas utilities say their crews perform work on the gas system and the way that work actually happens in the field. It also found that National Grid, the utility serving eastern Massachusetts, including Boston, is struggling to contain leaks on its gas distribution system.
Dynamic Risk Assessment Systems Inc., a company contracted by the Baker administration to examine the safety of natural gas infrastructure in the wake of the September 2018 natural gas disaster in the Merrimack Valley, turned in its final report this week. The report includes specific observations about each of the state's gas utilities after spending time observing gas work job sites and reviewing gas company manuals, policies, and procedures.
The utility-by-utility analysis indicates National Grid, the state's largest gas utility serving 116 cities and towns in eastern Massachusetts, is lagging in repairing gas leaks. Overall, the report said, 28 percent of the utility's mains are made of leak-prone materials, a percentage that rises to 41 percent in Boston itself. More than 40 percent of the mains across the National Grid system were installed before 1970, and the miles of mains with discovered leaks on the National Grid distribution system actually increased between 2013 and 2018.
The percentage of utility mains made of leak-prone materials was much higher in Boston than elsewhere. According to the report, only 11 percent of mains were made of leak-prone materials at the Berkshire Gas Co., serving western Massachusetts. The percentage was 29 percent at Eversource, which serves central Massachusetts.
"It is likely the vast majority of leak-prone mains and services are located in the Greater Boston area where replacement work is particularly challenging," said the report. Indeed, the report quotes National Grid officials as saying they face barriers to doing construction work in their territory. "The presence and impact of these barriers seems to be more prevalent at National Grid than at any of the other gas companies," the report said. "Whether National Grid is truly encountering more barriers or is less effective at addressing them is unclear."
The firm's phase one report found that the state's natural gas system is "generally reliable" but is made up of a higher proportion of leak-prone pipes, mains, and services made out of cast iron, wrought iron, or unprotected steel. It highlighted emergency response preparedness and overall safety as areas that must become greater points of emphasis at most every level of utility companies and the Department of Public Utilities.
After the meetings with all 11 gas companies operating in the state, interviews with executives and front-line workers, conversations with state regulators, listening sessions with stakeholder groups and a review of tens of thousands of pages of documents produced by gas companies, the DPU and agencies like the US Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, Dynamic Risk undertook physical inspections of pipeline infrastructure and on-site spot checks of gas company safety plans.
"The Panel learned more about each Gas Company's operations by making site visits in the field than reviewing documents or talking to management," the group wrote. "Moreover, what was observed in the field often did not match what the Panel expected based on company presentations or the reviewed company documents."
Dynamic Risk said its team found that gas company operation and maintenance manuals are compliant with regulations, but "are rarely helpful or relied upon in the field," that excavation practices "vary widely and often appeared to be out of alignment with company or State guidance," and that meaningful pre-work briefings were largely non-existent.
"This suggests a gap between what Gas Company management, State Agencies, and Stakeholders believe is happening in the field and what actually happens in the field," the company wrote in its report.
The analysts also found a culture at gas utility work sites in which workers stick to their own lanes and generally do not sense a need for continued education or critical review.
"A learning culture is present when individuals and the organization actively seek out learning opportunities, critically evaluate current practices, and develop a deep understanding of the causes of failure. The first barrier to identifying learning opportunities is overconfidence. The Panel observed a misplaced but often expressed belief that matters were going well at job sites across the Gas Companies," Dynamic Risk wrote. "When the Panel asked questions and expressed concerns about specific aspects of the work being performed, the response often indicated that is the way it is always done, there was no need to look for similar errors, or, alternatively, that it was not that person's responsibility."
But that culture, Dynamic Risk said, was not isolated to the in-field workers.
"When the Panel talked with management at Gas Companies at which the Panel had identified immediate safety concerns, management from two of the four Companies reacted defensively. At three of the four Gas Companies, the corrective actions proposed to the Panel were inadequate," the report stated.
The Dynamic Risk panel also observed the on-the-ground implementation of the new law which requires that all natural gas work that could pose a material risk to the public be reviewed and approved by a certified professional engineer. But in its report, Dynamic Risk wrote that additional guidance is needed to implement the law and that its safety benefits should be further reviewed.
"The Panel observed the use of PE-stamped drawings at many field sites. The PE stamp appears to add value in complex projects by providing another layer of review, and creating a pause in the work to consider options," the group wrote. "On other occasions, the value of the PE stamp was less clear. The Panel was made aware of several instances in which the need for the PE stamp to review a minor change added days to the construction process, resulting in a stop-start-stop-start cycle that increases risk but with little benefit."
And, Dynamic Risk added, "In several instances, the Panel observed PE-stamped drawings that contained errors."
The review team also looked at the state's Department of Public Utilities, which had been identified as having room for improvement in the first Dynamic Risk report, and found the agency "has made notable improvements since the September 2018 incident in Merrimack Valley and in response to the Phase I Report." Still, DPU has "opportunities to continue its progress and improvements to pipeline safety," the report concluded.
"In the past several months, the Department of Public Utilities has already tripled the number of pipeline safety inspectors, required certified professional engineers to approve natural gas work, issued regulations to reduce incidents of excavation damage and ensured that natural gas companies move to adopt recommended comprehensive pipeline safety management standards," DPU spokeswoman Katie Gronendyke said. "This final report represents a valuable tool to improve public safety, and the Department looks forward to working with utilities and other stakeholders to implement the report's recommendations and ensure the Commonwealth's natural gas distribution system is as safe as possible."
Gronendyke said the completion of the Dynamic Risk review "is a critical part of the Baker-Polito Administration's efforts to improve pipeline safety in the Commonwealth."
In the fiscal year 2021 budget the governor filed last week, he is proposing to sharply increase the fines it can assess on companies that do work on or near natural gas pipelines and to make utilities establish a timeline for replacing leak-prone pipes, in addition to making a $5 million outlay for the DPU's Pipeline Safety Division to ensure natural gas companies are in compliance with safety regulations.
Colin A. Young
Bruce Mohl
Editor, CommonWealth
E-mail @BruceMohl
About Bruce Mohl
Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe's State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe's Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state's pension system. He served as the Globe's political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine's website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.
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'This will be a place for the whole community'
Justin Fellows director of Just BU CIC, centre, with Michelle, left, and Anthony, right, members of a group for adults with disabilities, are opening a cafe at St John's Church hall, Hindley Green
A NOT-for-profit community group working with disabled people is branching out by opening a new cafe and drop-in centre later this month.
Community interest company (CIC) Just BU is opening the new facilities in Hindley Green, which will be run by its service users, having previously been based around Leigh.
The Just BU CAFFee, at St John's Church, will open once a month to the public but will also offer a weekly space where disabled people and their families and carers can meet.
The cafe has been set up by Just BU after some of its servicen users enjoyed running coffee mornings for charity so much they wanted to use their skills in the kitchen on a more regular basis.
Just BU founder Justin Fellows said: "Two years ago a group asked if they could do the Macmillan world's biggest coffee morning as it was something close to the individuals.
"They asked to do this again last year and we invited the community. It was a great success with friends, family, the public and people from special schools attending.
"The group asked if they could do it again but they didn't want to wait another year and suggested running a cafe.
"They felt a cafe was a big step so decided on a coffee morning but didn't want to just sell coffee. It was decided to use the word caffee as a play on coffee and cafe, it's a place for people to meet up, make friends, socialise and for parents to support each other."
The monthly cafe event will open to the public and sell hot and cold drinks as well as snacks, with the service users wearing special Just BU CAFFee aprons made by Leigh company Stitchrite.
The Atherton Road venue has its own kitchen, serving counter and dining area where the new service point will be, and Justin says he hopes service users will gain work experience, enthusiasm and confidence in their abilities through serving the public.
The cafe will be officially launched on January 29 with a drop-in for drinks and biscuits. Local residents, parishioners and Hindley Green Residents' Association have all been invited to the cafe's first opening.
Just BU also wants to hear from young Wiganers aged between 16 and 18 who would like to gain experience in social care and see its work first hand.
Justin said: "We want the Just BU CAFFee to be a place for the community of Hindley Green and surrounding areas, where people can come along, grab a bite to eat, have a drink, socialise and be entertained."
The Just BU CAFFee, at St John's Hall on Atherton Road in Hindley Green, will be launched with an opening event on Thursday January 29 from 10.30am until 2.30pm.
To find out more, search for Just BU CIC on Facebook or visit www.just-bu.org


The UK Intellectual Property Office is investigating how search engines and social media networks can step up their game to deter piracy. The Government is pushing for voluntary anti-piracy agreements between major Internet companies and entertainment industry groups, but will consider a legislative approach if these fail.
Last week the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) published its strategy for tackling copyright infringement over the next four years.
Among other things, the government said that it would work with search engines and social media platforms to reduce the availability of infringing content on their services.
However, new information just made available suggests that this cooperation may not take place on entirely voluntary basis.
In fact, the Government is considering the introduction of updated anti-piracy legislation if the measures taken by Google, Microsoft, Facebook and other tech stakeholders prove insufficient.
Civil servants at the IPO have started to collect evidence for ministers to document potential gaps in current legislation which need to be addressed, The Times reports today.
According to Ros Lynch, director of copyright and enforcement at the IPO, not all tech companies are doing as much as they should.
"A number of companies do have procedures in place and they are taking some action. I'm not saying they've been wholly effective. Some are not doing as much as they could," Lynch says.
In recent months the UK Government has hosted talks with tech companies and entertainment industry players, hoping to reach voluntary agreements. Thus far these meetings have been without result.
Google, one of the primary targets of the movie and music industry companies, maintains that the current takedown system is both effective and efficient enough to deal with infringing content.
However, UK music group BPI would like to see a more pro-active anti-piracy stance from various intermediaries. Search engines, for example, should make sure that content doesn't re-appear under a new URL once it's been removed.
"This damaging situation can only be remedied by Google themselves changing strategy and proactively pursuing a 'notice and stay down' approach, so that once a piece of content has been notified for removal by the BPI, it isn't indexed again for the same site and stays removed," the BPI noted previously.
How UK law could be amended to address these concerns is unclear, but the major search engines and social networks are likely to push back hard against more restrictive policies.
This is not the first time that the UK Government has warned major Internet companies over their lacking anti-piracy policies. Former UK Culture Secretary Sajid Javid issued a similar "legislative" threat two years ago, without much effect.


Throughout this year, we will be addressing critical scenario gaps to make the new document library experience support custom processes, commands, and other functionality required for complex, business-critical workflows in complex organizations. Specific capabilities we are investigating building include the ability to host web parts on the page, the ability to define custom view layouts and conditional formatting, and the ability to be visually customized and branded with client-side design pacakages. In the coming weeks we'll share additional information surrounding these extensibility opportunities across lists and libraries.
I want to echo many of the concerns here as well. These pieces of functionality are vital to allow users of Modern Sharepoint to provide solutions to our clients.
I'll also add that the modern pages have massive accessibility issues with the way that it was designed. A scrolling content area, which the modern pages use, is a huge no-no in web design. How do you add page anchors and gain "default" browser behavior if the page itself isn't scrollable? You can't. By design, the MS team has broken basic browser functionality and accessibility.
By allowing alternate css, we can easily overwrite that CSS and make the page templates better and more usable. However, it does not solve the fact that page headings cannot be given a "bookmark" or the fact that MS doesn't automatically apply an ID to headings out of the box.
This is coming in teh form of page extensions in the form of the new SPFx framework, get more details here https://dev.office.com/sharepoint/docs/spfx/extensions/overview-extensions this is exciting stuff.
Working on it since a year ago? Flip would be nice to see an update on this.
Any news yet? The ability to save files directly to ODFB from SharePoint document library is one of the best features MS has introduced - and we would LOVE to implement this.
So frustrating. Will this ability ever appear?!?
@SharePoint Experiences Team (Admin, Microsoft SharePoint): Status of this?
We us JSLink through our company SharePoint online site. We can not use the New Experience until you allow JSLink customization. Please Microsoft get JSLink working with the New Experience.
Why hasnt this been added yet? Come on MSFT!
We really need this. We implemented a company wide global nav which shows up a menu on every page, and it stopped working on pages that have the new document library experience. Without this, we have no way to inject a dynamic list driven global menu.
This isn't aceptable. Microsoft is wasting time, effort and money with new apps when most of them are not needed at all. First they should fix and complete a product, then others. Not setting 30 different products that arent finished yet.
At this point, modern sites development was also a waste of time, because the old look and feel has personalization options, modern has nothing.
I agree, we can not satisfy client needs with the way the new experience works. It's a complete oversight on the part of Microsoft. This needs to be rectified. I've already had clients question their choosing of SharePoint. How was this decision even considered much less put into production.
Please tell me how to convince end-users to use SharePoint. In some scenarios, the classic view is still better but if they want to move / copy / import files, the new design is preferred. But how can you switch back from classic to new? Close everything, restart IE (MS Edge lost his momentum in SharePoint space, even MS Support advices to use IE in SP, but hey! If you have Win10, you have EDGE!! Whoewhoew!! ), find back you library etc...mmm. And then they asked to us: Are you really using this by yourself?
The new design would be something awesome, but the first experience is disappointing. Same happend to Edge.... So as soon as the new design is mature enough for end-users: a bad perception is already in place.
Microsoft is a normal Company so only cares about shareholders.
Customers are a means to make money.
than 2 more who require complex Cloud services.
Instead MS is putting more and more effort into preventing customizations in SharePoint Online. Just look at the Group Sites (modern Teamsites created via new Homepage, Groups or Teams). They put a deny customize pages policy on those.
Dear Microsoft: We are losing customers. And so are you... So please think about your strategy once again! SPFX is awesome, but is just not what customers have really been doing in regards of customizations within SPO.


Home | HBA Specto Inc.
HBA Specto Incorporated specializes in modelling and analysis for urban, regional and transportation planning. The company provides expert strategic guidance and support to modelling and analysis teams. It also develops and provides computer mathematical modelling tools, and undertakes specific analysis using these tools. The company was set up in 2000, and has carried out a wide variety of studies for public sector clients throughout North America, Asia, and Australia. These studies have ranged from reviews of particular studies to major projects in travel & spatial economic land use model development. The company is based in Calgary, Alberta, & currently has 10 professional staff specializing in the above fields, and 2 support staff.


text:
Development and characterization of polymer inclusion membranes for the separation and speciation of inorganic As species
Güell, Raquel, Anticó, Enriqueta, Kolev, Spas D., Benavente, Juana, Salvadó, Victòria, Fontàs, Clàudia
Journal of membrane science 2011 v.383 no.1-2 pp. 88-95
anion exchange, anions, aqueous solutions, arsenates, arsenic, arsenites, cellulose, chlorides, dielectric spectroscopy, liquid membranes, nitrates, permeability, phosphates, plasticizers, polymers, sulfates, wastewater
This study involves the preparation and optimization of polymer inclusion membranes (PIMs) based on the polymer cellulose triacetate and the extractant (carrier) Aliquat 336 (a mixture of quaternary ammonium chlorides) for the transport of inorganic As species (arsenite and arsenate) from their aqueous solutions. The influence of the composition of the membranes on its extraction and transport properties was investigated. Better membrane performance was obtained when the membranes did not contain plasticizer and the concentration of the extractant was high. Under these conditions arsenate (As(V)) could be quantitatively separated from As(III) within 5h even in the presence of common anions (i.e. chloride, phosphate, nitrate, sulfate and carbonate) often encountered in natural waters and industrial and domestic wastewaters. Electrical impedance spectroscopy measurements allowed the determination of the dielectric constant and conductivity values of the PIMs of interest. These results suggested that the extracted As(V) species was HAsO₄ ²⁻ which was further transported across the membrane by a hopping mechanism, counter currently to the transport of the chloride anions present at a high concentration in the stripping solution. The overall performance of the proposed PIM in terms of stability, selectivity and permeability compared favorably to those of an Aliquat 336 based supported liquid membrane and a commercial multi-valent anion exchange membrane.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.memsci.2011.08.037
DOI: 10.1016/j.memsci.2011.08.037
Find in a library http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.memsci.2011.08.037 Download RIS File Export to Zotero


"CBS days. Traffic and weather together every ten minutes on the five at eleven fifty five. Let's take a look at your freeways with manpower checkout. Things got a little bit busy in the last fifteen minutes or so Irvine one thirty three north approaching the four or five we had a solo car crash. And it's still in lanes drivers tapping on the brakes as they approach Laverne ten east at fruit strata, stalled car along the very narrow right shoulder. A tow truck in the area hitching up the vehicle to move it off the freeway north Long Beach seven north at Long Beach boulevard, a car fire to report the off ramp is blocked if you need to exit the freeway, I would use de LA MO. A surface street problem hacienda heights corner of Turnball canyon road and skyline. Drive car carrying about six young adults it overturned on its roof. And this is an injury accident. First responders there on the scene Baldwin park and east point day to car wreck both along the right shoulder. One of the bagels totaled a tow truck there on the scene. Lynnwood one five west of Wilmington car slammed into the guardrail the vehicle west resting along the center divider bit flowing through the area. Our next report twelve o five Chekhov with more traffic reports. More often KNX ten seventy NewsRadio. Overnight. Lows are going to be in the fifties. Mainly and then tomorrow, it's going to be in the sixties and in the seventies."


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Tag "Subex"
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