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Tests find fracture in Falk pipe: Prosecutor calls leak 'significant' after tests on propane line linked to fatal explosion(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Dec. 29--Tests conducted Thursday revealed a fracture -- what a prosecutor described as "a pretty significant-sized leak" -- in a propane pipe that fueled the fatal blast at Falk Corp. this month. The breach in the pipe appeared to be near the southeast corner of a building known as the Annex, the 50,000-square-foot storage structure that blew apart shortly after 8 a.m. Dec. 6, said Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Kent Lovern. The exact size of the fracture has not been determined, but gas appeared to flow somewhat freely from the breach, based on pressure tests conducted throughout the day, Lovern said. Pumping harmless nitrogen gas into the system, engineers attempted to boost the pressure in the pipe to 70 pounds per square inch. It was a struggle. The effort required nitrogen gas to be pumped into the system at a pressure of more than 2 1/2 times that level, Lovern reported from his investigators on the scene. "Once they laid off the amount they were pumping into the system, the pressure immediately dropped in the piping system itself," Lovern said. "That led them to conclude it was a pretty significant-sized leak." Just before the explosion, steamfitters from mechanical contractor J.M. Brennan Inc. and Falk employees had noticed gas leaking from the underground pipe. At the time, the workers had been testing the propane system, which delivers gas from the storage tanks to boilers used to heat Falk's manufacturing complex. The pipes run under the Annex. After the leak was discovered, Falk workers in the immediate area were told to move away, and the Annex doors and windows were opened to clear the accumulating gas. Three Falk workers -- Thomas LeTendre, Daniel Kuster and Curtis Lane -- died in the explosion. An additional 46 workers were injured. The company, with more than 700 employees, sustained damage to several buildings. Falk also has not fully recovered its ability to make large gears and other industrial products. Representatives from Falk and Brennan were among the roughly two dozen engineers, investigators and attorneys observing the pressure tests to determine what caused the propane leak and what ignited the gas. While confirming the existence of a fracture in the pipe, the tests did not pinpoint a cause of the breach. Evan Zeppos, a spokesman representing Falk, said the company's observers interpreted Thursday's test results somewhat differently from Lovern's. "They think it's much too early to speculate on size and possible location," Zeppos said. "There will be some other testing done, and until that's done, we're just not going to guess or speculate." One of the next steps in determining the extent of the fracture and what caused it will be an excavation of the pipe, scheduled to take place Jan. 8, Lovern said. "We continue to gather information. That's the state this process is in right now," the prosecutor said. "It's too early to draw any conclusions about what happened and why it happened." The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration is leading the investigation into the cause of the explosion. Christine Zortman, the assistant area director for OSHA, said Thursday that federal investigators could not release results or specifics of the tests at the Falk site. She described the status of the investigation as "still pretty early." OSHA officials were joined at the test site by engineers, investigators and attorneys working for Habush Habush & Rottier, the firm representing the families of the three men killed in the blast. Given the size of the leak suggested by Thursday's pressure tests and the extent of the explosion, something other than simple corrosion likely caused the fracture, according to David Heldenbrand, a consulting engineer from Houston who has investigated roughly 500 gas system failures in his career. "If you have a corrosion pit, it would be hard for that corrosion pit to get that big that fast," Heldenbrand said. "In general, something would have to cause that pipe to fracture." Copyright (c) 2006, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |