WASHINGTON — The Transportation Department said Tuesday it has fined the El Paso Corp. and a Colorado subsidiary $2.3 million for safety violations in connection with a pipeline explosion in Wyoming three years ago that killed one worker and sent a giant fireball hundreds of feet into the air.
The fine is the largest it has levied against a pipeline company, the department said. The department initially proposed fining El Paso $3.3 million but lowered the fine after an administrative appeal by the company.
On Nov. 11, 2006, a bulldozer working on construction of the Rockies Express Pipeline project struck and ruptured a buried 36-inch natural-gas pipeline owned by Colorado Interstate Gas, an El Paso subsidiary. The rupture caused an explosion and fire that scorched 600 acres. The bulldozer operator — Bobby Ray Owens Jr., 52, of Louisiana — was killed.
The accident took place southwest of Cheyenne about 2 miles north of the Colorado border in a rural area with no structures nearby.
An investigation by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration found the pipeline hadn’t been located and marked according to federal safety regulations, the department said.
“Federal requirements are in place to provide protections for America’s most important assets, its citizens,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. “The department will hold pipeline operators accountable for the safety of those who live and work in the vicinity of their systems and negligence will not be tolerated.”
