Bayview terminal

The new Bayview Terminal had a design operating pressure of 740 pounds per square inch (50 atmospheres or 50 bar) and the accident pipeline was designed for much higher pressures, so it was necessary to install pressure-reduction equipment where the pipeline joined the new terminal. There were three layers of control and safety devices (i) a control valve to throttle the incoming flow, (ii) a pilot-operated spring-loaded relief valve, and (iii) three motor-operated isolation valves. This triple-barrier approach is sound design - a control system, backed-up by two protection systems (the relief valve and the isolation valves). In the event of a problem with the control valve, the relief valve should operate quickly, and only in the event of a fault with the relief valve should the isolation valves ever have been required to operate. 

There still should have been opportuifities to diagnose and rectify the problems with the relief valve. After the new Bayview Terminal went into service on December 17,1998, there were operational difficulties. Pressure control continued to... 

Olympic Pipeline Company s failure to test, under approximate operating conditions, all safety devices associated with the new Bayview Terminal. 

Meanwhile, several miles away at Bayview, in December 1998, Olympic completed construction of a new terminal with a storage capacity of 500,000 barrels (82 million liters). The contractor was Jacobs Engineering Inc. The gasoline flowed southwards along the pipeline, through Whatcom Falls Park, to the new terminal. 

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See also in sourсe #XX -- [ ]

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