Nearly four times a day in Colorado, developers, homeowners or builders hit gas pipelines while excavating or digging into the ground, sometimes with deadly consequences such as the fatal explosion in Firestone that was caused by a severed line near a home.
But Colorado officials have an inadequate system for preventing pipeline excavation damages, which are responsible for about a third of the state’s gas pipeline leaks, federal regulators have warned. Deaths in the state from excavation damage range from a contractor who was preparing a lot for construction to a person who hit a gas gathering line while digging a fence.
Records show that in 2015, nearly 1,300 gas pipelines in Colorado were damaged during excavation. The state that year issued no civil penalties or sanctions for any pipeline excavation violations, officials with the U.S. Department of Transportation noted in a September 2016 letter to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, a copy of which also was sent to Gov. John Hickenlooper.
The lack of state penalties prompted federal officials to find Colorado’s enforcement of its excavation damage prevention laws inadequate last year. Colorado is one of 26 states to receive such a rating from the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
ABC-7: Colorado to start fining people caught ‘rolling coal’: what you need to know
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is set this week to sign a bill that will up the fines for so-called “coal rollers” who use modified diesel trucks to smoke out unwitting bystanders.
But what exactly is “rolling coal,” and why did Colorado’s Legislature spend time on two separate bills this session to punish those who do it?
What is coal rolling?
“Coal rolling” has roots in diesel truck pulls, competitions in which drivers modify their diesel engines to pull sleds or other trailers loaded with weight.
But in recent years, people have started to modify their trucks with switches or other fuel or computer modifications that allow more fuel into the engine, creating more diesel exhaust.
FOX-31: Drivers may be penalized on insurance rates for using smaller carriers
Colorado’s increasing popularity definitely comes with a price.
All of us are paying more for car insurance in part to subsidize higher risk drivers. And according to a new study, some of us are being unfairly penalized.
About seven percent of Colorado drivers have to buy insurance from smaller, non-standard carriers versus the preferred big name standard carriers.
“A lot of folks that end up with a non-standard carrier have never had previous insurance,” said Colorado insurance industry spokeswoman Carole Walker, “They may be much higher risk and may not be able to get insurance with that preferred company because they have a DUI, because they have a lot of speeding tickets or at fault accidents.”
Those companies charge higher rates. But the Consumer Federation of America study found even drivers with good records had to pay more to switch to a standard carrier.
from Watchdog.org
via IFTTT
