Natural Gas Line Back In Service, Except For 15-Mile Stretch Of Pipe

A 260-mile-long natural-gas pipeline has been returned to full service with the exception of a 15-mile stretch south of Yelm, Northwest Pipeline Corp. said.

That area has been isolated by the company because of land movement on Vail Mountain detected during an aerial survey, said spokesman John Nicksich in Salt Lake City.

As a precaution, operating pressure of a parallel 30-inch pipeline in the same section has been reduced, Nicksich said Saturday night.

The 26-inch-diameter pipeline that runs from Sumas, at the Canadian border, south to Washougal at the border with Oregon, had been shut down for inspection after it sustained two explosive ruptures last weekend.

On Friday, geotechnical consultants and other experts finished surveying the line by helicopter, looking for spots where land had slipped around it.

Such slippage, probably caused by recent heavy rains, is the suspected cause of the two explosions and fires - one near Everson near the Canadian border and the other 200 miles south, near Kalama along the Columbia River. No one was injured in either explosion.

The questionable section will not be reopened until crews complete the ground work and everything is deemed safe, Nicksich said.

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