A natural gas pipeline explosion near Pittsburgh Friday damaged several house, with one firefighter saying it looked like an open door to hell.
Environmental groups quickly latched onto the disaster as an example of why all pipeline project proposals moving shale gas from Pennsylvania to the Northeast should be immediately rejected by federal and state approval boards.
“It looked like you were looking down into hell,” Forbes Road Fire Chief Bob Rosatti told Action News 4 Pittsburgh. “As far across my windshield as I could see was just a massive fireball.”
The gas pipeline is owned by a subsidiary of energy company Spectra called Texas Eastern. First responders said some nearby residents had to be treated for burns, with one person badly burned, but no deaths are being reported. The damage to utilities, phone and cable lines was extensive off state Route 22 where the blast occurred. A quarter-mile evacuation zone remains in effect.
The state utility commission said it will investigate.
The Texas Eastern pipeline runs more than 9,000 miles from the Gulf Coast through the Marcellus and Utica shale regions to New Jersey.
The New Jersey chapter of the environmental group Sierra Club, a staunch opponent of moving gas from shale drilling in Pennsylvania, issued a statement on the accident, saying pipeline accidents “are far too common and will become even more dangerous if we continue to allow these pipelines to crisscross New Jersey, especially with the proposed pipelines near homes and environmentally sensitive areas like PennEast Pipeline.”
The director of the New Jersey chapter, Jeff Tittel, said the pipeline that exploded in Pittsburgh is similar to the proposed PennEast line.
“Putting a pipeline through the backyards of so many people is like putting a potential blowtorch next to everyone’s home,” he said. “The only jobs this pipeline will create is for more fire and other emergency responders to deal with potential explosions.”
