Thursday, 4:30 PM
City asks for review of 22 miles of steam pipes after asbestos scare
(Jodi Hilton for The Boston Globe)
Emergency workers used plastic sheeting Wednesday to seal off Otis Street.
By Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff
City officials today asked Trigen Energy Cos. to conduct a comprehensive review of its entire 22-mile network of subterranean steam pipes after a joint ruptured Wednesday beneath a street and sent a plume of steam and asbestos spewing from a manhole in the Financial District.
"This is not just about one incident," James W. Hunt, the city's chief of environmental and energy services, said this afternoon. "We have concerns about the 22 miles of pipe that Trigen operates."
Mayor Thomas M. Menino has been pushing legislation to allow the state Department of Public Utilities to regulate pipes that help heat and cool 240 buildings in metropolitan Boston. Problems with steam pipes have caused a spate of minor injuries, city officials have said. In New York City in July, one person died of cardiac arrest and more than 20 others were injured when a steam pipe burst beneath a street in Midtown Manhattan.
On Wednesday, no one was injured when the 14-inch pipe burst beneath Otis Street, but three workers and a passerby had to be decontaminated at local hospitals. Pipe insulation containing asbestos was shot high in the air and coated a portion of the block with brown dust.
In a statement released this afternoon, John Shea, the environmental hazards program director for Boston Public Health Commission, said tests found air quality in the "normal range" for a city environment. "The incident resulted in no significant asbestos risk to the public health based on asbestos monitoring results," Shea said. He also said low levels of asbestos, mostly from natural sources, are always found in air quality tests.
The pipe that burst was being repaired when an expansion joint apparently ruptured, according to a preliminary investigation, said Nancy Sterling, a spokeswoman for Trigen Energy. A routine inspection conducted in the last two weeks found a problem with the pipe, and two workers for Trigen and a subcontractor hired by the company were making repairs when there was an explosion at noon Wednesday.
Trigen is conducting a formal investigation that will include interviews of the employees who were working on the pipe, Sterling said. A final conclusion will not be reached for several weeks, she said.
