Negligence and Cost Saving: The Carlsbad Pipeline Disaster 2000 | Short Documentary 

As a child I woke up to Saturday morning cartoons. As an adult, I'm waking up to Saturday morning disaster videos.

I like how the staff member is driving a Ford Pinto. 😂

Note to self: Do not camp near energy infrastructure sites.

Diagram: "Not to scale." Me: "That seems reasonable." Diagram: "Not accurate." Me: ".... That seems reasonable."

"NO DATA BRO IT'S STILL FUCKED" that's whats going on in my head when i cant remember wtf i studied for during an exam

Who said camping is boring 😔 My bro in law and I were doing grounds maintenance for a huge subdivision years ago. He took off on the mowing tractor and didn't return. This was before cell phones. I took off in the truck to see if he was screwing off. I pulled up and saw the tractor stopped under the tree line and bro standing in the middle of the small field. He was a big boy, 6'3", about 285 pounds. He had one foot on something a couple inches off the ground. "WTF you doing?" I yelled. He raised his foot and a whoosh of gas flew up. The mower deck had sheared off an unmarked pop up. His quick thinking prevented evacuation of a neighborhood. First thing he wanted after the fire dept and gas company got there was to GTFO of there, and have a smoke 😂 He'd been standing on the leak for almost an hour, hoping I'd come check on him. Gas is dangerous!

1:59 You know nothing good is coming when old rusty Pinto rolls over the screen...

You could say they were NOT happy campers.

Your "dodgy cartoons", sense of humor, and quality of research are the reasons why I have been subscribed for years, and I am a channel member. Your viewers and myself especially look forward to these videos every week.

4:08 _"Balls."_ 10:07 _"FFS, bro this hole?"_ _"wt u say about my mum?"_ Perfect Plainly Difficult.

Immediately after this failure, EPNG announced they had "inspected" this pipeline a few days before. That inspection was actually an aerial overflight of that pipeline. That won't show corrosion. Also, while fixing & testing this pipeline, another corroded spot on Line 1103 was blown out during a hydrostatic test, which is a high pressure water test. That failure was on the other side of the Pecos River, before the compressor station. Also, many of the valves on this pipeline were not able to be operated by the control center, so someone had to go out to the manually operated valves to shut off the pipeline. This failure, plus the Bellingham WA (1999) & Lively TX (1996) fatal pipeline disasters, led to new laws to force pipelines to test their pipelines by smart pigging or hydrostatic testing.

Speaking of pigs. My grandfather worked on oil rigs in the 70s and 80s. He was one of like 5 people at most in the United States who could operate a "smart pig" at the time. A smart pig is basically a truck length "pig" that can scan the inside of the pipe. He would park his truck on the beach and get flown out by helicopter to whatever rig needed him

Now that i work with a scada system almost constantly for my job, these videos always help me realize how important it is they are working properly. Basically turns into me not wanting to see my company end up in one of your videos one day!

My grandparents were evacuated from their home a few weeks back because a very high pressure gas leak was detected in a nearby gassline, and the soil around it had become saturated with water, causing it to be unstable around the joinings. The local gov immediately took action and evacuated nearby homes and businesses and put up roadblocks. At 10 p.m., the issue was resolved, and my grandparents got to sleep in their own bed. I'm so happy with how fast and good the government reacted. It could have been a disaster, especially because there was also a gas station and an electrical plant across the street. Prevention is always better than a cleanup.

"Something very explody" John shows a cartoon Pinto 😂

I remember when this happened because the land I owned in Idaho had a high pressure natural gas pipeline running under it. It was a pipeline running from Canada to the south. There were two major railroad lines within a quarter mile of my house, which carried all manner of toxic materials. We had been evacuated from a small town in 1990 when a Union Pacific car carrying sulfur dioxide developed a leak one block from our home. Sulfur dioxide turns into sulfuric acid when it contacts water like in your eyes and lungs. I still remember the burning sensation as we ran for the cars. Nightmare fuel.

Feels odd to feel happy when I see a new video detailing a terrible disaster.

My Saturday morning is complete!

The first time I learned about pigs I think was a James Bond film where they used one modified for secret agent stuff to sneak 007 between Eastern and Western Europe during the cold war era. Allowing him to bypass checkpoints

Lesson learned: If you're a camper looking for a camp site and you see signs warning you not to trespass on private property and/or the presence of dangerous conditions in the area (such as but not limited to natural gas pipelines) plus access to parts of the road are roped off then move on and find a different site. Poor folks didn't have to die, but they just had to camp at this spot for reasons only they could have explained but we'll never fully know why. Sometimes you have to wonder just how far companies have to go to protect the public from themselves.

"No data bro, it's still fucked" 🤣🤣🤣

The same thing happened one hour from where I live. The massive explosion jumped a major interstate and incinerated multiple houses. Amazingly, there were no injuries at all, just massive property destruction.

terribly sick and trying to recover while juggling a physically demanding job has me feeling so crappy.. but a PD upload is enough to help me get ready for work! let’s do this!

When it happened, a local news report made it seem as though it was an “official” place for campers and the gas company had slid in to bury the pipe at night!

Your sense of humor is absolutely perfect btw

Pipeline companies: you can trust us! It’s safe! The pipelines:

It's hysterical the Pinto has a rusty fender. Perfect touch.

I worked in the IT department of a natural gas pipeline operator around this time. Pulling pipeline historical data together from dodgy records that were 50 years old was a pain, but this was a reminder of how important the work was.

These stick figure companies need to have a gladiatorial combat episode

The horror of waking up to find 12 members of your family dead is beyond comprehension.

Interesting to see Carlsbad mentioned because I live over an hour away in Hobbs. We have so much oil industry stuff here that it dominates our local economy. To add to a more smaller disaster that happened in the same area. We have ranches in this area too where companies will rent out the land on those private ranches in order to drill, process, or do wtv they can. I worked for a ranch last summer where in the winter some oil processing workers forgot to close a gate to a processing station which led to over 50 cattle, both adult and young, to consume the chemicals and die. It hit that ranch hard and fucked up their spring season work. Sadly the company was being an ass and were fighting tooth and nail to not pay. All this to say is that the oil here has given us disasters like in the video and a lot smaller ones.

I like how John is able to mix the serious with satire to make an interesting and entertaining video . BALLS !

hi i just wanted to leave a comment because i noticed you used an audio i've previously complained made it hard for me to hear your video; in this one, the sound on the music is low enough that i can both appreciate the music AND hear what you're saying. i just wanted to thank you for the adjustment because i know i've complained in the past. this was a great video for me, thank you for the work put into it.

1999, Olympic pipeline explosion, Bellingham Wa. City park partly flooded with gasoline due to damaged pipeline. Explosion and fire devastated the area. Today it's a lovely park.

Sheesh that crater! Natural gas is no joke.

I've been following disaster coverage for nearly 20 years. How do I not know this story? Wow.

I guess they thought the pipeline would "el paso" the test... 😂😂😂 I'll see myself out... 😂

I’m weirdly happy to see this this morning, since the past week has gone by so slowly yet so quickly that we’re having trouble keeping track of the day. My dad died on Monday morning, so having something normal the following Saturday is more reassuring than you realise. Thank you as usual, but even more so right now.

Love watching your videos when there's a thunderstorm outside laying down in my bed having a lazy day Just enjoying the pitter patter of rain on the window and your voice talking about disasters just love it

I used to work for a natural gas pipeline inspection company. Some of things I saw and did were fascinating and terrifying. Complex models were used to determine where to inspect. There are MILLIONS of kilometers of pipeline all throughout North America. Some run under the backyards of homes. Some of the remediations (aka 'fixes') were pretty substandard back in the day. One pipeline failed because of a weld where the welder ran out of welding material and decided to melt down the spoon from his lunchbox. There the weld sat buried six feet down for 50 years, until it failed and exploded, killing people. I've also visited sites of failed NG pipelines--a set of four 36" pipes. The diameter of the charred ground was 1000 yards. The size of the twisted chunks of pipeline thrown out of the ground were similar to a humpback whale. The major issue with pipelines is something called SCC (Stress Corrosion Cracking), microscopic cracks from pressure cycling, and inappropriate pipe coating for the moisture expected in the soil. Asphalt coating cracks in dry ground, PVC tape fails in moist ground. Failed coating = corrosion = failure of pipe wall. And just for a comparison, your car's tires are pressurized to about 35-40 PSI. These pipelines usually are running at 900 PSI. Filled with a highly flammable/explosive gas. Every 30km or so, there is a compressor station that helps to boost the pressure or shut a valve if there's a sudden drop in pressure (if there's a pipeline failure). So generally speaking, if there is a failure in the pipeline, you'll get sometimes several dozens of kilometers of product also being dumped out into an often violent, fiery situation. And rarely is it advertized that there's a 36" NG pipeline running through your backyard...

8:01: "...that something very explody had happened". I love videos and stories about explody things.

Pipeline explosions like this make me wonder where the pipelines are in my area. And how stable they are

I swear, some of this stuff you cover is just nuts to think about, from like a regular civilian standpoint the amount of shit under our feet is kind scary. I remember digging a massive hole with my brother, in the empty lot next door when he uncover a massive cable thing. Well us being kids in all, we just dug around it😂😂, wasnt till my uncoe came by to see what we were doing, told us real quick to get the hell outta the hole n to fill it back in. That was the day i learned about underground electrical cabling, n we had infact been digging around one, an had actually come pretty close to cutting through it, had i not told my brother that it was probably a bad idea. Glad he agreed with me 😅😂😂❤

Thanks for adding pig pictures! The cuteness was helpful in getting through an explosion I had not heard of before

When you was talking about the pipeline I noticed he used the Ford Bento article incidents or was that just cute? That was so cute. It was unreal. Got a good laugh out of it.

It ain't Saturday morning without pancakes, eggs, and disaster.

NTSB says: "FFS! Look at this hole bro!"😂

WE NEED THE BINGO CARDS!!!! And maybe an announcement stating… everyone have your bingo cards?

remind me to be careful when picking my camping spot in New Mexico carefully

Meeting the lawn will have to wait another 14 minutes

Every Saturday, at or around 3 pm, I look forward to the notif that tells me about a new PD video. Have a great weekend, John!

Thanks John always love to kick back every week or two and have a catch up on ya vids mate. Shout out from a sunny/overcast spring day in Blackpool.

love your videos! keeping me going through my exam revision :D

US commenters: This makes our Saturday morning PD: Chuckles graciously in GMT

Thanks for your awesome content, John!

Good lord! Sitting here playing with my dog while watching this vid and at a glance that jumble of blown apart pipe at 0:43 looks like a dead and bloated hippopotamus! 😮😂 I was like: “Hmm.. Pretty sure there ain’t no Hippos in New Mexico..”. I should add that I also need glasses. Badly.

Smokey Bear was found after a forest fire in the mountains North and a little West of there (closer to Roswell, NM).

You have an uncanny gift of making disasters hilarious. I don't know whether to laugh or cry, so I wait until the end of the day and do both😂😂❤

Another great video! Very well researched, edited, and narrated as always.

You're the best! You went from all technical and professional to "something very explodey had happened."

I'm really enjoying this channel. Very interesting and informative 👍

Great video as always, was chilling out yesterday listening to your "The Glades" while working.

if you want another pipelines vid but slightly scandelous. You should look into the plastic gas couplings that Atmos installed on underground pipes in neighborhoods exploding all around North West Dallas

Its actually a compliment to the maintenance procedures and workers that things like this arent more common, given just how many pipelines criss-cross the world

You never miss an opportunity to fit in a 'your mum' joke 😄

My boss worked on this case and many more an still is we have a inspection at the end of the month. I enjoy your content

looking forward to this!

I find your videos deceptively easy to watch.

Another great video, thanks

John hasn't made a video about the Los Alfaques explosion yet I think. I was 13 and i remember that I was camping when I saw the pictures in the newspaper. 😬

I hope you can cover the 2009 Bozeman MT natural-gas explosion and fire. It took out a full block on main street and the fire department had to let it burn for several days while waiting for parts to fix a broken shutoff valve. The National Guard was called in for security so the police could go back to regular duties. All in all it would do well on the bingo card.

John makes my Saturdays ❤

Oh, thank God.Not that a campsite exploded. That I get to hearJohn's voice Been having a PTSD attack all night long and it is 7:00AM now I really need respite.🥺

Our family sold gas out of the San Juan Basin since the 1940s to EPNG. It was a household name to us.

TY for the report as always! 7:24 🤣🤣 A pinto... with un-matching body panels... all thats missing is Sandlers' POS car playing in the background! Thanks for the laugh. ML and Blessings!

Thank you John

Plainly Difficult always great content to wake up to

I've been binging all the videos on this channel. They have been absolutely fascinating, but I'm surprised I'm not seeing a video about the Concorde Jet. Granted, I haven't made it through all the videos yet, so I might have missed it.

I'm a gas compression operator. One thing to note is that standing water in the pipeline isn't the main cause of corrosion, as the lack of oxygen prevents that. The main purpose of pigging is to remove the water to reduce pressures and optimize gas flow rates. Corrosion is caused by bacteria though, so a way to mitigate corrosion is to inject a corrosion inhibitor chemical into the pipeline. A smart pig would have detected it but if it's not a piggable section then that wouldn't have been an option.

There are a couple of different ways to 'Pig' a pipeline; One method is to use big rubber spheres that are very dense and hollow on the inside. There is a recessed pressure valve on the ball that has a "Schrader valve" (an industrial version of a tire inflation valve) and the ball is filled with liquid (absolutely no air, as air is compressible). We used car anti-freeze inside of the spheres and had a 'sizing ring' that was 102% of the inner diameter of the pipe. The ball was put in to a launcher trap (think of a torpedo tube with a door and after you seal it off you flood it with product (for our pipeline it was either gasoline or diesel fuel). On a signal a plunger would rise up inside and the sphere would get launched in to the flow of the pipe. Along the way we had these little sensors that were called "Sphere-Here" that popped up a flag to indicate that a ball just went past. Depending upon how long the line was (50-200 km) it could take anywhere from six hours to two days to get to another trap (called a receiver trap) that was an enlarged section of pipe that the ball would drop in to and roll down to the door. (launcher traps were tilted so the ball would roll away from the door, receiver traps were tilted so the ball would roll to the door. We did spheres a couple of times a year. These were non-instrumented and were mostly to get any sort of dirt, grit or welding slag inside of the line and to push it ahead and in to the receiving trap where there also was a big strainer basket (about two meters tall and a meter across, the strainer was the size of the drum on a commercial sized washing machine but built to handle 1400 PSI of pressure). Usually we recovered a few buckets full of grit (like fine gravel or sand) and maybe a quarter pound of welding slag that finally scraped its way off the inside of the pipeline. One time I was there when we opened the trap and found a rubber glove and a steel cannister that once held welding rods. ----- Every two years or so we had to launch an instrumented inspection tool. This was a long string of what looked like toilet plungers assembled on to metal carriers and put together in a chain about 10-15 feet long. In the middle was a bigger section that had rings of magnets, little metallic probes and pickup coils. That section was hollow inside and contained a computer and a great deal of memory. It was sealed against the pressure. What it did was to generate its own magnetic field from the fist sized permanent magnets and the little sensor probes and coils about six inches behind the magnets would indicate what the wall thickness was (magnetic field would deviate from the wall being corroded/thin or even by some other metallic object outside of the pipe). We had spots along the line that we would dig up that were precisely known and prior to launching the inspection tool they would put on this giant magnet (that was a steel bearing-cap off of some engine that was made in to a magnet. When the inspection tool passed that giant magnet it created a big blip on the recording and that acted like a roadsign to show where the tool was. After the inspection tool was removed from the pipe the electronics were unsealed and the data was downloaded on to a laptop computer. It took the inspection company (we used Halliburton at the time) to look at the logs and they would give us a big report showing every anomaly in the pipeline. That created the work-list for the pipeline maintenance crews go go dig things up to replace any section that was approaching regulatory limits but also if the inspection detected a dent or the presence of some new piece of metal near our pipeline. New metal near our pipe that we did not know about before meant that someone had dug and buried something near us. That required that we dig it up to re-inspect our pipe and in some cases to make the intruder take their pipe or object and move it somewhere else. -------------------- One time we had a pipeline leak when they were redoing a highway that we ran along side of. The road crew was driving in guardrails along the shoulder and did not call the one-call number for a utility locate. They pounded a steel guardrail post right in to the top of our pipeline. It put in a tiny, 1/2" long crack with a dent on top of the pipe. Just enough to leak gasoline over the months. Eventually we took a report for the smell of gasoline in a nearby ditch and went out there and found the guardrail over our pipeline. --------------------- I took a different job with a different company (back in the 1990's) but even at that point in time we had cathodic-protection (current to prevent external corrosion), line inspection and we had to do what is known as "hydrostatic testing" where the pipeline is filled with water and overpressured and it must hold that pressure for a day or so without losing even a few drops of water. Even with all of that we had pipeline breaks from people digging and hitting it with a backhoe or someone gouging off our protective coating.

“No Data Bro” “It’s still f*cked” 😂😂A+

Great video. I love your nuclear videos. And I have a suggestion for a video. The Ocean Ranger disaster that happened off the coast of newfoundland.

I lived/worked at the time in Malēga NM very near where this accident happened unfortunately I was on the rig and we weren't allowed off nor were we allowed near the site I personally didn't even know people were killed till you pointed it out

I would love a documentary of the Merrimack valley explosions in mass! Right down the road from me and I would love to learn more, practical engineering did a great video on it

Love ur channel

“Something very explodey.” 😂😂

I don’t think you have yet, but you should cover the disaster at cajon pass, I fell like you’d enjoy the research and making it, looking forward to it. It involves pipelines and trains, win win

I remember this. I think this also happened in Ruidoso, NM.

Many people in Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico oppose government regulation. Perhaps they should all go camping near pipelines.

This is a tragic case that the snarky animations make more palatable.

I remember when this happened. I saw the grisly photos of the burned vehicles in the Albuquerque Journal. Horrific.

Awesome channel.

I remember hearing about this in the news at the time.

"The net pressures dropped. Little did the controller know that an explosion had occurred..." Underqualified to stare at screens? 🤣 You had ONE job!

We were actually on a family vacation to Carlsbad when this happened. We got stopped and told to turn around, having to stay in Roswell after driving all day.

I lived in this town for a few years and somehow never heard about this incident. Weird!

There is a high pressure natural gas pipeline that crosses my ranch. Shortly after the turn of the century, Atmos Energy added a massive pigging station, just inside my property line, and they can now pig the line fully each way. Internal inspections done since the station was added have led to replacing pipeline to the west of me, and it looks like the rest will be done soon. The aftermath of this incident has made big changes in the industry.

Thats a weird campsite choice.

I keep on reading time pressure as tire pressure.

I thought your bingo card could have FATIGUE also as you said near end of shift and putting on coffee. The alarms see pressure drop and yet they waited to hear of a fire and explosion to stop the pumping. That delay could be policy and procedure or fatigue. Delay in itself may have let some of the campers die of injuries.