NWF Top 10 Pipeline Accident States

August 13th, 2010. By AbiK

An interesting tidbit from the National Wildlife Federation’s (NWF) report, Assault on America: A Decade of Petroleum Company Disaster, Pollution and Profit (released July, 2010) is their chart that depicts the top ten US states for pipeline accidents, 2000-2009.

While it’s natural to think that Texas—often synonymous with big oil—tops the chart (it does) for “significant incidents”, what’s more surprising are the states with the most fatalities associated with pipeline accidents.

Here’s the list of 2000-2009 Onshore Pipeline Accidents, sorted by “Significant Incidents”—apparently defined as those  where injury or fatality occurred or property damage was greater than or equal to $50,000 in 1984 dollars:

Texas                     523

Louisiana               223

California               177

Kansas                   117

Illinois                    115

Pennsylvania         114

Oklahoma              113

Ohio                       74

Michigan                 61

New Mexico            58

Now, if you resort the same list and look at fatalities, here’s what you’ll find:

Texas                     15

New Mexico           15

Pennsylvania         10

California                9

Louisiana                6

Ohio                       6

Michigan                 5

Kansas                   3

Oklahoma               3

Illinois                     2

For the record, if you look at total US—i.e., not just the top ten states listed above–Onshore significant incidents, the numbers go like this: 2,554 significant incidents, 161 fatalities, and 576 injuries.

If you want to add in total US Offshore incidents from 2001-2007—so remember, this data predates the BP oil spill, there were 1,443 incidents resulting in 41 fatalites, 302 injuries, 476 fires, nd 356 pollution events.

Tags: BP, BP Oil Spill

This was posted on Friday, August 13th, 2010 at 11:08 am and is filed under Environment . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.