Vertical Support Member repairs improve safety along pipeline right-of-way

A worker last summer was clearing brush near the pipeline when he slipped and felt his leg plunge into a deep, narrow hole. Amazingly, he was uninjured. But Randy Smith, Pipeline Right of Way Manager, recognized that the worker could have easily suffered serious harm because of the open, abandoned Vertical Support Member (VSM) piling that - thanks to dense vegetation - was basically invisible to the eye.

"He didn't break his leg," Smith said. "But he could have."

Since then, with help from diligent supervisors and pipeline security, Smith's office has logged more than 250 abandoned, uncovered pilings that stretch from milepost 6.5 near Pump Station 1, clear down to milepost 736.08 near Valdez.

At some point, the decision was made to simply leave these pilings be. But in today's safety culture that drives Alyeska's approach to operations, overlooking these hazards isn't an option, Smith said. That's why he's having each of the old VSM pilings capped off: So that no one gets hurt.

"This is not about system integrity," Smith said. "This is about pipeline safety. There are crews out there working, yet we have these hazards out there."

After the worker's initial misstep last summer, Smith's office put out a Loss Prevention System (LPS) alert line-wide, warning TAPS employees that a worker's foot fell into a cut-off VSM hidden beneath brush. The bulletin urged people to keep an eye out for similar hazards, and said old VSMs should be capped. And by summer's end, field crews located and capped nearly 50 abandoned VSMs.

But there were probably more out there. So this summer, Smith asked the security officers to keep an eye out for old VSMs while they conducted their annual 800-mile foot patrol of the pipeline corridor.

The team, on foot, found 212 more.

Tom Demattia, Construction Manager, said the pilings date to a variety of projects. Some held VSMs that were never used, so crews just sawed them off and left them there. Others mark spots where holes were bored into the ground for soil temperature tests, or bridge supports.

"It's definitely a hazard," Demattia said. "And it's being mitigated."

The field team will visit each abandoned piling. They are as narrow in diameter as 10 inches, and as wide as 41 inches, and most measure 18 inches across. The majority poke aboveground, rising as high as 55 inches from the terrain. Crews will saw those off so no piling is exposed. All VSM pilings will be capped and backfilled, Smith said.

He expects the project to take about two weeks.

"These got used for some purpose once, then they were just left there," said Smith, a TAPS employee since 1975. "Back then, it wasn't a safety concern. Today, taking care of the problem is what we need to do."