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hatrack

(59,440 posts)
Tue Jun 23, 2020, 07:40 AM Jun 2020

Mariner East Pipeline Technician Pleads Guilty - 77 Counts Of Falsifying Pipe Weld X-Ray Safety Docs

An X-ray technician working on Energy Transfer Partners' Mariner East 2 pipeline project falsified documents about the safety of the line in western Pennsylvania 77 times. Joshua Springer, 42, who no longer works on the pipeline, pleaded guilty in a video hearing yesterday to a federal felony count of lying to the government. Under the plea agreement drafted in February, he faces up to six months in prison. Sentencing will be Aug. 24 before U.S. District Judge Marilyn Horan.

Mariner is a 350-mile line transporting highly volatile liquids such as ethane, butane and propane from the Marcellus Shale gas region to facilities near Philadelphia, primarily for conversion into plastics.

Springer copied an X-ray of an acceptable weld joining two pipes and used it to certify the quality of other welds on a portion of the pipeline in western Pennsylvania in 2017, said prosecutor Lee Karl. "He did this 77 times," Karl said, before the fraud was detected by a third-party audit.

Energy Transfer reported the problem to regulators after finding it in 2018 and reinspected all the welds in the section where he had been working. Company spokeswoman Lisa Coleman said the welds complied with regulations. She said the problems were discovered before the pipeline was put into operation.

EDIT

https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2020/06/23/stories/1063436471

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Mariner East Pipeline Technician Pleads Guilty - 77 Counts Of Falsifying Pipe Weld X-Ray Safety Docs (Original Post) hatrack Jun 2020 OP
Sounds like the company did the right thing and rectified the situation. captain queeg Jun 2020 #1
Not much of a deterrent Finishline42 Jun 2020 #2

captain queeg

(10,036 posts)
1. Sounds like the company did the right thing and rectified the situation.
Tue Jun 23, 2020, 07:52 AM
Jun 2020

I think a lot of times stuff like this gets swept under the rug.

Finishline42

(1,091 posts)
2. Not much of a deterrent
Tue Jun 23, 2020, 09:34 AM
Jun 2020
Under the plea agreement drafted in February, he faces up to six months in prison.

Maybe it saves the govt to not have to go to trial but the damage that could have been done if one of those welds failed would seem to warrant something more severe.

I wonder about his certifications? Why did he reuse the same X-Ray? Was he lazy or did he not know how to operate the equipment?
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