Industry
News
New York City Steam
Line Incident
On July 18, 2007, at around 6 p.m., a
20-inch underground steam main ruptured
near the intersection of Lexington Avenue
and East 41st Street in mid-town Manhattan.
Within close proximity to Grand Central
Terminal, one of the busiest locations for
commuters in the city, Con Edison Steam
Operations quickly mobilized an emergency
response team including the New York City
Police Department, the Office of Emergency
Management and the Fire Department of
New York to respond to the emergency as
the steam plume rose to the tops of nearby
skyscrapers.
The emergency response team and the
office of Mayor Bloomberg confirmed that
the incident was not a terrorist attack and
promptly conveyed the nature of the crisis
as a “failure in the city infrastructure and
not an act of terrorism.” Once steam was
isolated and the geyser was contained, New
York Emergency Response focused on supporting the needs of commuters, residents
and pedestrians in the area.
Unfortunately, people were injured,
including one young man driving and a
passenger in a tow truck that was located
in the intersection. A woman died from a
heart attack during the evacuation. Many
people were impacted by the debris and
turned in damaged clothing and belongings to a Con Ed command post. Testing
indicated traces of asbestos in the wet,
muddy debris, but air samples indicated
limited airborne asbestos.
Con Edison established a ‘frozen zone,’
initially a 10-block area around the incident
and gradually diminishing in size as around-the-clock cleanup progressed. Site remediation included cleaning up buildings near
the ruptured main, removal of tons of debris,
setting up temporary shunts for electrical
cables and collecting, logging and tagging
pieces of pipe, cable and concrete as forensic evidence.
Because it was a high-pressure line
(150 psig) and the release caused significant
displacement and evacuation of materials
underground, the pipe sections were buried
under substantial volume of debris and
equipment. It required a few weeks to reach
and remove the damaged section of the main.
After several weeks, the frozen zone was
reduced to 100 ft north, south, east and
west of the rupture site, no longer blocking
access to any office building in the area. By
late August, two lanes were open to traffic
on Lexington Avenue and reconstruction of
the intersection had begun.
Given the highly visible location and
nature of the incident, extensive media
coverage focused on speculation surrounding the reliability and age of the piping
network in New York City as well as steam
systems in other cities. On Aug. 7, the
Consumer Affairs Division of the New York
City Council held a special hearing on the
incident. Con Edison Senior Vice President
William Longhi presented a report on the
incident, the emergency response and
cleanup, followed by more than two hours
of questions from councilors. As requested,
Rob Thornton of IDEA provided testimony
on behalf of the district energy industry.
(Download the testimony at www.district
energy.org/member_news.htm.)
Due to the disruption of businesses and
traffic in addition to the injuries, Con Edison
has retained professional firms to assist in
the metallurgical review and forensic engineering to provide a thorough investigation
of the equipment and site conditions. Strict
chain-of-custody procedures are being utilized
to ensure that underlying conditions that led
to the rupture are understood. Ultimately,
the cause and effect will be identified and
released to the public. As of Oct. 1, the
metallurgical and forensic reports are not
yet available. Once an update is released,
IDEA will broadcast additional findings to
its members.
Source: Con Edison.
Con Edison Steam Operations used this illustration to help explain the steam distribution system to the
media and New York City residents.
