"Study Finds Flaws in Pipeline Leak Detection Systems"

"A forthcoming federal report on pipeline safety has found that members of the general public are more likely to identify oil and gas spills than the pipeline companies’ own leak detection systems."

"The report found that pipeline control rooms, which help monitor whether a line is functioning properly, identified leaks in hazardous liquid and gas transmission lines only 17 percent and 16 percent of the time. Control rooms identified leaks in gas distribution pipelines, like those that go into homes or businesses, less than 1 percent of the time, according to the report.

The study was commissioned by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration."

Dan Frosch reports for the New York Times December 21, 2012.