The Makati pipeline leak

(Following is the transcript of the segment "Analysis by Winnie Monsod" which aired on News on Q on November 4, 2010. Prof. Winnie Monsod is the resident analyst of News on Q which airs weeknights at 9:30 p.m. on Q Channel 11.) Main protagonists in Makati fuel leak incident 1. West Tower (WT) - Condominium in Barangkay Bangkal 2. City of Makati (City) - office of the Mayor, City Engineer, etc. 3. First Philippine Industrial Corporation (FPIC) - owners of the sole commercial private pipeline in the Philippines, completed in 1969, which transports fuel and petroleum products from Batangas to Sucat and Pandacan, Manila 4. National Institute of Geological Sciencies (NIGS) - headed by Dr. Carlos Arcilla through GeoScience Foundation Time Line: July 28, 1976: FPIC sends a letter to DPWH Secretary Baltazar Aquino, to the effect that substantial portions of the 14-inch pipeline will be affected by the then proposed overpass (SLEX) project - 110 meters of the pipeline will be affected by the project's retaining wall. Comment: No reply May, 2010: a resident of Capinpin St. in Barangay Bangkal detects the smell of gas or noxious fumes emanating from his deepwell. Tells City. Comment: Nothing done. July 9, 2010: WT residents detect smell of fuel fumes in the basement, stairwells, lobby and finally living areas of the condominium - traced to cracks in basement wall and in sump pit in the lowest basement (Basement Level 4). July 12, 2010: FPIC digs up area of pipeline in front of WT to determine if there are leaks. Results are negative. City asks FPIC to dig 13 "Test Pits" (1.5 m diameter, 2m deep) parallel to pipeline along Bonifacio St to determine presence of gas and/or petroleum products. Tests turn out negative for the soil samples, but positive for water samples. Comment: FPIC stopped pipeline deliveries from July 12-14, and from July 21-24 to allow for the tests. July 21, 2010: Noxious smells stronger in WT. City orders WT residents to vacate, cut off electricity, and shut down sump pumps used to pump water from basement into city drains when water in sump pit exceeds a specified level. Comment: City says WT is told to siphon off expected water buildup from basement using alternative methods to pumping. WT says City informally suggests that they use the pump at night when nobody is looking, but WT demurs. And cannot find the proper contractor. Result: water build up (with fuel on top) floods basements 4 and 3. July 27, 2010 press release/news report comes out with following: 1. Flooding of WT basement prevents authorities from determining cause of leak. WT given seven days to siphon out water, or else. 2. City Engineer also "rules out the FPIC pipeline as source of the gas leak leaving the basement of the condominium as the only area not thoroughly investigated" 3. Mayor Binay approved a proposal to: (a) hire a private company to check for presence of pe,troleum products in water samples from Capinpin St where residents had complained of fumes as early as May; (b) soil boring tests in the area conducted to locate the presence of petroleum products and the source of the leak. Comment: It takes WT 39 days and P7 million to execute this order (fuel must be separated from water before water can be discharged into city drains). In the process 8-11 drums of fuel a day are collected from the water at 200 liters per drum or anywhere from 1,600 to 2,200 liters a day of - in separate batches -- gasoline, diesel and kerosene- and in the past two days, the amount had gone up to 14 drums. Furthermore, the proposals approved by Mayor Binay were not carried out, until two months later. August 9, 2010: In a meeting between WT and Mayor Binay in the Mayor's office, City tells WT that FPIC is not the source of the leak - based on the FPIC letter regarding the findings of the diggings and Test Pits. Comment: The working hypotheses of the City, at this point, is that WT is the source of the leak - the speculation being that WT has drums of diesel buried under basement 4 for emergency purposes, and that these were the ones leaking. WT claims it has nothing buried underground. What it had was a tank for its genset that had 2.5 drums of diesel, plus another three full drums for reserve. At 200 liters per drum, we are talking about 1,100 liters of diesel in basement 4. Sept 7, 2010: WT informs City and DENR that basement water is now confined to sump pit, but fuel continues to leak into basement. Comment: remember that WT still does not use sump pump, but gets an outsider to separate fuel from water so that the water can be drained. Sept. 13, 2010: Inspection team -- composed of various City agency, DENR and DOE representatives -- verify that WT can be eliminated as source of leak. City still wants to check on gasoline stations and car and motor repair shops in the area as possible sources. Comment: Which of course doesn't make sense. Gasoline stations that would lose 1,600-2,200 liters a day would soon be out of business, and would at least try to find out how they were losing that much. Repair shops don't use that volume of kerosene. On the other hand, the pipeline transports over 8 million liters a day of a mixture of gasoline, kerosene, and diesel. Sept. 20, 2010: FPIC hires two separate firms to conduct "Ground Penetration Radar Scans " (GPRS) tests. GPRS tests are "not definitive" but may "point to some possible areas for further examination. Results, upon further examination, included an underground object that had the dimensions of a storage tank, were negative. October 15, 2010: The results of another test - part of FPIC's quinquennial pipeline integrity check, are submitted to City. This test, conducted by the independent contractor NDT Middle East, (at a cost of $2 million), used the most modern and universally accepted magnetic flux and ultrasonic technologies. Findings: There are "no metal loss areas that would indicate any leaks are present." Comment: Faced with an impossible situation, that neither WT nor FPIC are the sources of the leak, City finally brings in the marines by sending a letter to President Emerlinda Roman of the University of the Philippines, who assigns Director Carlos Arcilla of the National Insitute of Geological Science (NIGS) to conduct an independent review. Even without a written contract, Arcilla and his team of geologists swing into action. Arcilla quickly realizes that given the volume of fuel that has been leaked, given the pattern of the leakages - alternately gasoline, diesel and kerosene that mimic the pattern of what is transported in the pipeline, it cannot be anything but the pipeline. He and his team bore holes, along the pipeline and use "explosimeters" to measure the extent of explosiveness of the fumes that may be found. October 28, 2010: Early morning - in an area of the pipeline directly under the ramp of the flyover, the dig shows a strong stream of gasoline gushing out. All doubts are erased. The pipeline is the source of the leak. Comment: The extent of the leak has not yet been determined. The work is hampered by the fact that the leak seems to be right under the flyover - which, 34 years ago, FPIC warned the Marcos government about. With the benefit of hindsight, here is what happened to the protagonists: we see that the Makati City Government seems to have drawn the wrong conclusions too early in the game; and that it did not implement until almost three months later, the proposal approved by Mayor Binay to get an independent contractor to do the tests. The West Tower allowed the water to flood their basements, the siphoning out of which wasted 39 days; FPIC believed their digging and their hi-tech tests, and refused to realize the significance of the volume and the pattern of the fuel leaks - until faced with the evidence of gasoline gushing out of the hole bored by the NIGS Team. NIGS must be congratulated - because they came in even without a contract signed, realizing how large the stakes were. I understand that Dr. Arcilla used his own money to purchase those crucial explosimeters. Arcilla does UP proud. Honor and Excellence.
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