How Natural Gas Leaks Endanger Cities and the Environment
The Gas Busters
In Providence, Rhode Island, a small group of activists works to find and expose dangerous and environmentally harmful gas leaks
Gas and the Gasbusters
Martina Müller, of the Providence, Rhode Island-based Gas Busters. Photo by Philip Noble
Martina Müller holds up a small black device. The rectangular object, protected by a leather case, has a dial and a small LED screen on its face. A clear tube, coiled like a telephone cord and topped with a smooth metal probe, extends from the top. It’s a gas meter, and Müller is walking the streets of Providence with a group called the Gasbusters, looking for methane leaks.
“You only use it, like, in a confined space, like a manhole or storm drain or a hole in the pavement,” says Müller. “If you get up to like 4 or 5% gas, that’s when you start really having a risk of combustion and you need to call 911.”
Müller and the Gasbusters look for leaks for two reasons. The first is environmental concern. Methane is one of the most powerful greenhouse gases, 30 times more efficient at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. The other is an issue of safety. Some of the leaks are large and concentrated enough to pose a risk of fire or explosion. The leaking pipes are also a sign of aging infrastructure, some of it dating back to the mid-1800s. In addition to leaks, old gas lines pose challenges for utilities that can lead to disasters like the Massachusetts Merrimack Valley explosions of September 2018.
Today, Müller is with fellow Gasbusters Rudy Whelan, Arya Serenity, and Bill Tickner. They are walking through a small part of the east side of Providence, Rhode Island, a mostly middle class neighborhood of modest one or two family homes. It’s one of the first warm days of spring, and Müller is excited about the prospect of an enjoyable time testing for gas leaks. The Gasbusters begin walking up Hope Street, the main drag of Providence’s east side. At first, progress is slow. They test every manhole, and most storm drains. Of special interest are holes in the road itself, either from construction or from National Grid probing for leaks and pipes.
Arya Serenity, one of the Gasbusters. The Gasbusters are a Providence, RI based group that finds and maps gas leaks. Photo by Philip Noble.
As they walk along Larch Street, Müller points out spray painted labels for underground pipes. “This says 4-inch cast iron, that’s from National Grid, and that’s referring to the gas pipes.”
Despite the evidence of recent work, the first few streets are devoid of leaks. Then we turn on to Ivy, a narrow, residential street parallel to Hope.
“Ooh, this is 10, 15!” exclaims Serenity at one of the first manholes. The leak tops out at .15%, a relatively small one. .15% methane means 1500 parts per million in a given air sample. It’s nowhere close to the threshold for explosion danger, but every leak allows methane into the atmosphere, contributing to the greenhouse effect and climate change. The manholes on the rest of the street show similar levels, peaking at .25%, or 2500 parts per million.
Most leaks are about this size, slowly releasing methane into the atmosphere. These smaller leaks don’t pose a real threat, but they still contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Some leaks are much more serious problems.
The largest leak the Gasbusters have found on the east side so far is on Abbott Street. It topped out at 7% methane, well into the explosion danger zone.
According to Rudy Whelan, National Grid probably knows about this leak. The actual site tested was three small holes bored in the asphalt. According to Whelan, boring these holes is how National Grid searches for possible leaks.
Another major leak, hovering around 5% methane, is on Allens Avenue in South Providence, right across from National Grid’s main Providence facility. This leak is of special concern because it is in an industrial area full of holding tanks, pipelines and chemical depots. Gas leaks and chemical spills are a repeat problem in the area, which is situated just downhill of one of Providence’s most densely populated and impoverished neighborhoods.
Whenever the Gasbusters find leaks like this, they report them. Whelan says that although repair crews and even firefighters do show up sometimes, little seems to be done about the leaks. The holes on Abbott Street and Allens Avenue are still reading at dangerous levels. The crews that show up are often dismissive of the Gasbusters, questioning their data or the calibration of their meter.
The Gasbusters and other activists face a serious challenge in changing the status quo. Natural gas is by far the most popular fuel for heating. 48% of all homes in the U.S. use natural gas for heating. The percentage is closer to 60% in most regions of the country except the South, where most homes are heated with electric systems. While carbon dioxide is still the most important and most emitted greenhouse gas, methane accounts for about 10% of the U.S.’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
Utility companies also usually maintain local monopolies. This is the case in Providence, where National Grid is the only game in town. This makes it extremely difficult to implement change, as state and municipal governments can’t shop around for services and often have to work with companies on their terms.
Arya Serenity testing a manhole cover for methane levels. Photo by Philip Noble.
The scale of the gas leak problem is massive. Nowhere has this been more clearly demonstrated than in Massachusetts.
Nathan Phillips is an Earth and Environment professor at Boston University. He is the person who gave the Gasbusters their gas meter when he came to talk with members of Climate Action RI, the Gasbusters parent organization.
Phillips oversaw a 2013 BU study that mapped methane leaks in Boston. The study covered all of the city and found 3,356 leaks.
Phillips says that he stumbled into studying gas leaks through “complete dumb luck.” He was out for a walk with his son one day in fall 2010. He noticed one of his neighbors, Bob Ackley, using a gas meter around some trees. He asked what was going on. Ackley replied that leaking gas pipes were emitting methane that suffocated tree roots, and he was searching for places where this was happening. As soon as he heard that trees were being harmed, Phillips says he had found a calling. Not long after, he was dedicated to finding leaks and fighting to get them fixed.
After completing the first 2013 study, Phillips began to work with researchers and climate activists all over Massachusetts. As a result of these efforts, Phillips and other environmentalists now estimate there are over 20,000 leaks in Massachusetts alone. These leaks, according to Phillips, account for 2.7% of the natural gas used by the state and 10% of its total greenhouse emissions.
Methane does not only enter the atmosphere via usage or leakage from natural gas utilities. Methane is a naturally occuring gas created in all kinds of biological processes, including digestion and decomposition. This methane is called biogenic methane. Methane mined from the earth via fracking and other techniques is called thermogenic methane.
A number of sources around Boston, including sewers and marshes, could produce biogenic methane that might throw off the results of any effort to track methane gas leaks. To account for this, Phillips and his cohort used sensors at the tops of several buildings in Boston.
While biogenic and thermogenic methane are essentially the same gas, there are a few differences between them. Fracked methane contains 1-5% ethane. Biogenic methane does not. Thermogenic methane also contains more of a heavier carbon isotope, 13C. Biogenic methane contains a lighter version of carbon, 12C. This is the information the sensors tested for. According to Phillips, these sensors certified that the methane detected in his work was thermogenic methane.
Not only was the methane definitely from utility lines, most of the problem was just a few particularly large leaks. These “super emitters,” as Phillips and other Mass. climate activists refer to them, are just 7% of the leaks, but account for 50% of all leaked methane.
This hole in the pavement at Tecumseh and Abbott Street in Providence RI registered at 6% methane, a level that poses a risk of explosion.
As a result, Phillips believes that a complete overhaul of the state’s gas infrastructure would be unnecessary and counterproductive. He says a program of “triage and transition” is the ideal, as a brand new gas pipe system would still leave Mass. dependent on a dangerous and environmentally unsafe resource for heat.
According to Phillips, a full replacement of Massachusetts’ gas lines would cost $9.5 billion. He says patching just the super emitters would cost around $100 million, reduce the gas lost by half, and the other $9.4 billion could go towards replacing gas infrastructure entirely with renewable energy sources. Phillips says the utility companies generally prefer the first option.
To help with the problem, a “Gas Leak Alliance” formed to pressure the state into fixing the problem. In 2016, Gov. Charlie Baker signed a law requiring utility companies to identify and fix all super-emitting leaks.
The problem of aging, leaking gas infrastructure is not unique to Providence and Boston. Any city with old enough pipes faces similar issues. According to a study by the Environmental Defense Fund, most east coast cities have severe issues with aging gas lines. New York and Boston are especially bad, averaging about a gas leak per mile of road tested. Cities with more modern systems had far fewer leaks, with Indianapolis averaging one leak for every 200 miles of road tested.
One of the main problems is cast-iron piping. Cast iron pipes corrode, and the longer they remain in the ground, the worse the damage gets. This means that older systems are contributing greatly to climate change via methane emissions. They are also full of super-emitting gas leaks, some of which amount to ticking time bombs. In some cases, a gas piping system is so old that the entire system is one gigantic risk.
A small hole in a recently repaired road that registered .45% methane. Photo by Philip Noble.
The most recent high-profile example of this is the Merrimack Valley explosions. On Sept. 13, 2018, contractors for Columbia Gas were connecting new gas mains to a high-pressure distribution network in south Lawrence, Mass.. The old lines were a century old, and made of cast-iron. They were designed to work at low pressure, and were not meant to be hooked up to a high-pressure gas system. The old pipes were fitted with sensors to regulate gas flow. When the contractors disconnected the old distribution main, the sensors reacted as if the gas flow had been cut off accidentally. In response, the regulators the sensors were attached to opened fully, flooding the old cast-iron system with high pressure gas it was never designed to handle.
Dozens of fires broke out in several towns, damaging 131 structures, destroying five, and killing one 18 year old man when his vehicle was crushed by a falling chimney.
Columbia Gas was held fully responsible for the incident. They provided the contractors replacing the old system with a plan that failed to account for the regulating sensors that caused the high-pressure gas flood and subsequent fires.
This incident highlights many of the problems with using methane as an energy source. The incident was caused not only by aging infrastructure, but by a badly thought out plan to replace it. As an extremely flammable gas, methane will always have dangers associated with it, no matter the system used to distribute it. Any new system will one day become an old one, and the problems of our current gas infrastructure will only have been pushed into the future.
These continuing dangers are why organizations like the Gasbusters want to pressure state and federal regulators to pursue new, renewable energy sources. A popular prospect among many climate activists is the idea of a mass replacement of gas heating with electric systems. These electric systems would hopefully run off grids powered by renewable energy. Unfortunately, most of these systems are currently prohibitively expensive for most people, especially in cities with very poor neighborhoods that often have the oldest and most worn gas lines.
Many activists want to see programs to help with these costs. However, most ideas about what these programs should look like are still fairly vague. Any effort to overhaul the natural gas system to something more renewable would require efficient cooperation between utilities and government, for which neither party currently has much incentive. According to Müller, the state assumes that National Grid has the situation under control, and National Grid assumes the state will make them take action if there is a real problem. The Gasbusters hope that spreading the word about gas leaks and their dangers will create grassroots pressure to force government and the industry to come up with solutions, or listen to ones provided by others.
Nathan Phillips believes that the utility companies, while deeply entrenched, will do whatever is necessary to maintain their bottom line. He believes that if they can find a profit motive in reforming, they will. Of the companies, Phillips says, “If they see an incentive, they’ll follow suit.”
Gas infrastructure off Allens Avenue in Providence, Rhode Island. Photo by Philip Noble.