Pipeline that blew up, killing one, has exploded before; it remains a threat, says lawyer who settled suit with company

Lexington Herald-Leader drone video by Alex Slitz shows scene of Thursday's explosion

The natural-gas pipeline that blew up Thursday in Central Kentucky, killing one person and injuring several, has blown up several times -- and remains a threat to people living near it from Texas to New York, says a lawyer who negotiated a confidential settlement for a Pennsylvania woman injured in one blast, Valarie Honeycutt Spears and Beth Musgrave report for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Alfred Miler of the Louisville Courier Journal reports that since 2011, the pipeline has has 29 "significant incidents," according to the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. In 1985, an explosion on the line about 70 miles southwest killed five people.

The line, owned by Enbridge Inc., exploded Jan. 21 in Noble County, Ohio, injuring two and destroying two homes, the Herald-Leader reports, adding: "In 2016, an explosion at a Greensburg, Pa., on the [same] Texas Eastern Transmission pipeline burned one person and prompted evacuation of the area about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh." In 1986-87, the line blew up in three places in Kentucky in 10 months, and the last one, just a few miles from Thursday's blast site, "prompted revisions in federal operating regulations for all pipeline companies. . . . The probable cause of the explosion was corrosion. A federal investigation later showed the company had known for about five months that the line was badly corroded but failed to repair it."

Enbridge Inc. map via Lexington Herald-Leader

Minnesota lawyer Fred Pritzker, who represented the victim in the 2016 Pennsylvania case, "said in that case and many other pipeline failure incidents, corrosion is the problem," the Herald-Leader reports, quoting him: “With the rate of corrosion on this pipeline, there are many sections of the pipeline that are essentially a ticking time bomb. These pipelines are not supposed to suddenly blow apart. When they do blow apart, it’s usually because of internal and external corrosion which eats away at the pipe wall to the point where the pipeline is no longer capable of withstanding . . . the pressure and it basically just blows it apart, the gas rushes out and it’s ignited by a spark."

Enbridge spokesman Michael Barnes told the Herald-Leader that Enbridge has owned the pipeline since February 2017. "He said he was unaware of the problems that occurred more than 30 years ago but would look into the history," the paper reports. "Barnes said a variety of things can cause a pipeline rupture, including land moving because of rain. He said the investigations could take months."