In this episode of the Pipeliners Podcast, host Russel Treat speaks with Jack Willingham, the Emergency Management Director of Yazoo County, Mississippi, about the critical intersection of first responders and pipeline operations.

They discuss Jack’s experience with the Satartia CO2 pipeline rupture and the significant gap between first responders’ preparedness and pipeline operators’ communication.

Jack emphasizes the importance of proactive engagement and comprehensive training to enhance public safety and ensure effective response to pipeline incidents.

Pipelining from a First Responders Perspective Show Notes, Links, and Insider Terms

• Jack Willingham is the Yazoo County Emergency Management Director at Yazoo County. Connect with Jack on LinkedIn.
• Satartia, Mississippi CO2 Rupture In February of 2020, a Denbury Gulf Coast Pipelines’ 24-inch (61-centimeter) Delta Pipeline ruptured in Satartia, Mississippi. It released over 31,000 barrels of CO2.
  • Denbury Inc., a Delaware corporation, is an independent energy company with operations that are focused in the Gulf Coast and Rocky Mountain regions.
• Guillotine Rupture A complete and sudden failure of a pipeline, resulting in a full cross-sectional break.
• Asphyxiant A substance that can cause unconsciousness or death by suffocation.
• Hot Zone An area immediately surrounding a hazardous material incident that extends far enough to prevent adverse effects from hazardous materials releases to personnel outside the zone.
• Dense Phase CO2 is CO2 transported in a state that behaves as both a liquid and a gas.
• H2S (Hydrogen Sulfide) is a toxic gas with a characteristic foul odor of rotten eggs.
• Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS): Documents that provide information on the properties of hazardous chemicals and how they can be safely handled, used, and stored.
• API (American Petroleum Institute) represents all segments of America’s natural gas and oil industry. API has developed more than 700 standards to enhance operational and environmental safety, efficiency, and sustainability.
  • API RP 1185 aims to use the Pipeline SMS framework to build on stakeholder engagement to support more community involvement and dialogue.
• PHMSA (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration) is responsible for providing pipeline safety oversight through regulatory rulemaking, NTSB recommendations, and other important functions to protect people and the environment through the safe transportation of energy and other hazardous materials.
• Decon (Decontamination) the removal or reduction of residual contaminants (sometimes in combination with other hazardous materials) from equipment surfaces 
• EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) is an independent organization within the federal U.S. government designed to take measures to protect people and the environment.
• RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act): The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) is a federal law that gives the EPA the authority to control hazardous waste from cradle to grave. This includes the generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste.
• CO2 EOR (Carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery) is the process of injecting CO2 into the subsurface of existing oil fields to boost oil recovery. It is the only commercially established carbon utilization option that provides large-scale permanent storage for captured CO2.
• Carbon Capture and Storage (CSS) involves the trapping of man-made CO2 underground in order to avoid its release into the atmosphere.
  • Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) is an emission reduction process developed to prevent large amounts of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere.
• Sequestration is the process of permanently storing CO2 in subsurface structures such as oil reservoirs, natural gas deposits, unmineable coal seams, deep saline formations, shale rich in oil or gas, and basalt formations. 

Pipelining from a First Responders Perspective Full Episode Transcript

Russel Treat: Welcome to the “Pipeliners Podcast,” episode 346, sponsored by Solarcraft, providing high-quality engineered solutions for powering, sheltering, and operating critical field automation infrastructure. Find out more about Solarcraft at solarcraft.net.

[background music]

Announcer: The Pipeliners Podcast, where professionals, bubba geeks, and industry insiders share their knowledge and experience about technology, projects, and pipeline operations. Now your host, Russel Treat.

Russel: Thanks for listening to Pipeliners Podcast. I appreciate you taking the time. To show that appreciation, we give away a customized YETI tumbler to one listener every episode.

This week, our winner is Travers Schwartz with the Southern Mississippi Utility District. Congratulations, Travers. Your YETI is on its way. To learn how you can win this signature prize, stick around till the end of the episode.

This week we speak with Jack Willingham about pipelining from a first responder’s perspective. Howdy, Jack. Welcome to the Pipeliners Podcast.

Jack Willingham: Thank you for having me.

Russel: We met just a couple of months ago at the API Pipeline Conference. I got to have a brief conversation with you. I really appreciate you taking the time to be on the podcast because I think you provide a really different perspective that pipeliners need to hear and know about.

With that, maybe I could ask you to do a little bit of an introduction. Who are you? What do you do? Why do you care about pipelining?

Jack: My name is Jack Willingham. I’m the emergency management director in Yazoo County. I’ve got about 34 years in public safety of some kind or another. My interest in pipelining was really been enhanced by the incident that occurred in 2020.

There was a guillotine rupture of a 24-inch CO2 pipeline in the Satartia area. I determined, at that time, there was a large gap between first responders and pipeliners and their response plans and also with the community. The public safety of the community has always been my number one thing. Where I find a gap, I try to narrow it and get everybody together and try to solve some problems.

Russel: You said you’re the emergency manager for Yazoo County. That’s Mississippi, correct?

Jack: That’s correct. Yazoo County is a…

Russel: The incident you’re referring to was the Satartia, Mississippi, CO2 rupture?

Jack: That’s correct. Satartia is a small rural community in Yazoo County. Just a little history. Yazoo County is the largest, land-wise, county in the state of Mississippi. It’s about 937 square miles of many different terrains. We have a lot of rural area and a lot of different industry in the area.

Russel: I have spent a fair amount of time in my pickup truck driving around Yazoo County, Mississippi, doing various things. Saying that Satartia is a small, rural city in Yazoo is redundant. [laughs]

Jack: Yes. Mayberry is a metropolitan area compared to Satartia, Mississippi. It is definitely a small, rural area.

Russel: It’s all relative — Right? — to where you live and what you’re used to.

Jack: That’s correct.

Russel: What was your involvement in the Satartia incident?

Jack: On that particularly, I was the emergency management director. In Yazoo County, of course, I wear many hats. I’m the emergency management director. I’m the county fire coordinator, coordinate the fire response. I’m the 911 director and actually, overall, the search and rescue.

Pretty much, that particular night, all of those things were involved. I was directing the response that we had to the incident, trying to make sure we got the right resources in the right places, got everybody out of the hot zone or the danger zone. Basically, leading the whole response.

Russel: What did you learn? I would say these kind of incidents are exceedingly rare.

Jack: Yeah.

Russel: When they happen, they’re exceedingly significant. Right? I don’t need to minimize that.

Jack: That’s right. They are rare. We also realize we’re talking about an industry that’s going to grow, they say, up to tenfold over the next ten years. The chance of this incident taking place again is, of course, going to grow just as the industry grows.

The biggest problem that came out of this incident for me was, like I say, the original disconnect between the pipeliners and the first responders, or even a knowledge of what product was there and how to respond to it, and a disconnect between the community that was involved in the pipeliners at that time on how they would respond to something like that.

Russel: Maybe you could elaborate on that. I’ll try to tee this up a bit, because I know a bit about CO2. My first job out of the military, I was a CO2 engineer. CO2 is a odorless, colorless gas. It’s not a poisonous gas, but it’s an asphyxiant, meaning it displaces the oxygen.

Jack: Correct.

Russel: If you’re in a high-CO2 environment, it’s similar to drowning, because you’re breathing, but you’re not getting any air.

[crosstalk]

Jack: That’s correct.

Russel: That is very different risk. Very different. The nature of the fluid and how it behaves is very different, too, than what you would expect with natural gas or crude oil or natural-gas liquids, which, I would think, first responders are more familiar with those kinds of things than they are with CO2.

Jack: You’re exactly right. That’s something I was going to say, up to this incident, a majority of the training that any of the first responders had had in our county have been — I know you’ve heard of Paragon — Paragon-type events that talk about natural gas and liquid petroleum pipelines.

The response to them, as you say, is very, very different than what we’re talking about here. When we talk about CO2, just like you said, being an asphyxiant, it’s not toxic, but — I say this all the time — neither is a pillow until they put it over your face.

Russel: [laughs]

Jack: It is very much dangerous when you get into a situation…

[crosstalk]

Russel: Particularly in extremely high concentration.

Jack: …perfect storm that took place that particular night.

Russel: And some of the behaviors. I’m going to do a little bit of the thermodynamics for the listeners that may not be familiar with CO2 and how it behaves.

CO2 inside a pipeline is typically high pressure, 2,500 psi or more, particularly if they’re doing transportation, it’s what they call a “dense phase,” which is a hybrid between gas, liquid, and solid. It flows like a liquid, but it’s spongy like a gas. It’s weird.

CO2 does not exist as a liquid at atmospheric pressure. What happens when you get a release of CO2? It flashes to gas and solid, the solid being dry ice, which is -126 degree Fahrenheit. When you have a rupture like this, you get this dry ice storm, you get this huge release of volume.

The gas expansion, I can’t remember what those numbers are, but it’s in the order of 60 to 1, 50 to 1 volumetric increase. Plus, not only is the gas just naturally heavier than air, it’s also cold, which also makes it heavier than air. It tends to go to low spots and gathers and stays there, or it goes someplace where the air is not moving and it gathers and it stays there.

You have to do something to physically move the gas out and dilute it. It’s a very, very different thing than what you would have with natural gas or liquids, where the issue is more explosive or more fire.

Jack: Right. What you just described there was part of the perfect storm of the particular Satartia incident. The topography of that area is very strange. I know you’ve been out there. Everyone that’s listening may not know it, but everybody’s heard of the Mississippi Delta, Satartia sits on a line of where the hills of the state of Mississippi meet the Mississippi Delta.

Highway 3 is that line right there. This pipeline was up above the town of Satartia, as you say, up in the hills. The town of Satartia sits right where the Mississippi Delta starts. You go from these large rolling hills into the Mississippi Delta, which is flat, where you can see your dog run away for three days.

Russel: [laughs]

Jack: As this incident took place, just as you said, it being heavier than it is, it flowed right down that hill, which in the previous predictions of where this would go, it was just missed because of the topography. The town of Satartia was not even in the plans or in the thoughts that Denbury had at that particular time that it would be affected like it was in the rare chance of something like that.

Russel: What that means for pipeliners that are doing the work that they need to do is that that kind of impact analysis is not really mandated or defined anywhere.

Jack: That’s correct.

Russel: It’s different.

Jack: That’s right.

Russel: It’s unique to CO2 pipelining. Where with crude oil, you’ve got to do spill plans, and with natural gas, you’ve got to look at impact radiuses and all that, with CO2, neither of those two things really apply the same way.

Jack: That’s correct. We were in the state of Mississippi in February. It was a very cool night that particular night, which, again, added to what we had going on.

Russel: It’s typical of a significant event like this. It’s a whole bunch of things all coming together at the same time in a way that it stacks up, and that’s what contributes to the consequences.

Jack: That’s correct.

Russel: Talk to me about the nature of the preparedness the first responders in hospitals had versus what they actually needed.

Jack: Again, had we been…It’s easy to go back and say, “If.” In this particular incident, some of the problems we ran into — to tee this off — we got an initial call from somebody about a smell of rotten eggs and a large green cloud in the area of Satartia and 433.

That’s the initial call we started getting on 911. As first responders, the original thing you think, “That’s weird. That could be a lot of things. It sounds almost like chlorine gas, but there’s not any in the area.”

We start our response and we start getting multiple calls of people starting to struggle with breathing, having trouble breathing, passing out, falling out. Then we start getting reports from people whose vehicles are actually shutting down on the highway.

We’re still trying to look for a source of what this is, when one of my fire chiefs who — Jack actually had worked for Denbury as a construction worker at a time or another — finally thought of the fact that, “Hey, possibly this could have been an incident involving their CO2, but I don’t know if they’ve had an incident.”

We had to make a call to Denbury to find out if there had actually been an incident, who, by the time we got in touch with them, they let us know that 40 minutes prior, they’d had a drop of pressure on this line that’s running through there. At this time, the smell of rotten gas turns out to be the…Help me out here.

Russel: It’s the H2S content in the CO2.

Jack: It’s the H2S inside there. Again, us not having a knowledge of it, we’re starting to let our hospitals, as people are going to the hospitals, know there’s a possibility of H2S and CO2 poisoning. They’re not prepared to treat what they’re getting. Again, the level of personal protection we took in there and the actual treatment of the hospital just wasn’t there.

Whereas had we actually met together, as we’ve done since, communicated with the medical facilities in the area in case there is an incident like this, communicated with the townspeople to let them know what to expect in a situation like this, it would have been a lot less of the mess and the trouble that it was.

My responders did a great job in doing what they did. Even the operator, when they got on scene, did a great job in helping in what they did. It’s just that’s not the time to figure out what you’re going to do.

The preparedness ahead of time is going to save you so much trouble. The communication and knowing who you’re talking to, what their capabilities are, and making sure they have what they need to respond is just crucial to an incident like this.

We can’t have a generic pipeline response. If you have a different product like this in an area, we’re going to have to be product specific and make sure that everybody is prepared for what could possibly happen in their area.

We do it with every other disaster there is. We do it with tornadoes. We do it with tsunamis. We do it with hurricanes. Why are we not putting this same education level into a response like this instead of trying to keep it quiet and hoping nothing happens?

Russel: This is actually a really interesting comment to me, because in my first job in the Air Force, I was the base environmental engineer, and this is when the EPA was making RCRA part of the regulatory framework.

They were causing all vehicles transporting hazardous materials to start putting placards and numbers on them. There’s this whole thing. Anybody that works around hazardous materials knows about material safety data sheets.

If you’re operating a facility that handles hazardous materials, you have all these things you need to do, so if there is an incident, somebody comes into the facility, they know what they’re dealing with. They can look it up, and they can get that information pretty quickly.

That wasn’t the case. In fact, this was the opposite of the case. You guys, for a while, you were like, “What the heck is this? What’s going on?”

Jack: Right. Initially, we had to spend the time turning into investigators ourselves to determine what was causing the problem that was in the area. You were having to determine what the problem was before you can actually determine what your response is going to be. How much time has that wasted?

Russel: Every minute you’re doing that is a minute you’re not actually mitigating the consequences and responding effectively to help the people that are in trouble.

Jack: That’s correct. All the time also, your hospitals, if they’re taking people, they’re doing a decon on them. That was unnecessary in a CO2 incident, but because H2S came up, they’re doing a full decon on these patients that are responding to these hospitals. That’s not only causing unnecessary time delay, but unnecessary uncomfort to the people that are being brought in.

Russel: Unnecessary cost, unnecessary time, unnecessary use of resources, unnecessary concerns.

Jack: Correct.

Russel: Listen, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing all this. I think anybody who works in pipelining, we have an appreciation for this reality.

I know I’ve talked a lot with pipeliners over the years, there’s often a struggle with getting effective engagement with first responders around this kind of thing, because first responders, there’s so much training that they need, and there’s limited time and resources to get all that training. It’s a challenge.

What I’d like to ask next is, what are you up to as it relates to pipelining as a first responder? I know you were at API. I know you gave some presentations at API. What are you up to and what are you evangelizing to the first responder community about pipelines?

Jack: My education…I’ve been trying to preach to our first responders and the pipeliners themselves. As I go out and put this word out, the biggest thing I get out of these people is it’s going to be a dual responsibility. The public safety is not just that of our first responders. It’s also the people that are operating in that area.

The fact that I didn’t know for sure that there was a CO2 pipeline in that area, that’s on me as well as it is on them, because it’s our responsibility to know what comes through our area, to go out and find what the dangers are so we can mitigate every problem that possibly could be.

As a pipeliner, you need to come in and find somebody in a position like mine. That’s going to be your best way to do it. Find out who the players are in the game so that you can go out and communicate and meet these people that are responding.

Some of these pipeliners may assume that every fire department in the world is going to be a metropolitan-type fire department, where most of these departments that are going to be responding to pipeline incidents are going to be rural fire departments that have volunteers that are running them.

You need to go out and meet the people that are responding. Find out what kind of equipment they have and what kind of equipment they may need to have at least a basic safe response to your incident. Find out and let them know. Communicate with them what the product is, the way that it can affect people, and what they need to do to respond.

Make sure they at least have access to the training. If not provide them the training, make sure they have access to training to have the proper response.

Again, I encourage my first responders to reach out in their areas if there may be somebody not contacting them, contact the people in the industry, invite them to their departments, come out and have a meeting with them, have a meal with them. These guys love that. Now, these country firemen love to cook for you and feed you, and they want to take in your knowledge.

Russel: Oh, yeah. The Friday evening fish fry at the local volunteer fire department is generally some pretty good catfish, particularly in Mississippi. [laughs]

Jack: It’s really good. As I’ve been going out talking about all these things, I’ve actually been before PHMSA, when they’re restructuring the different responsibilities and guidelines for these pipeline things. I’ve talked to them numerous times. I’ve been to DC several times, talked to Senate.

My big thing is public safety. I’m definitely not one of these anti-pipeline people in the world. I promise you that. My job is public safety. I want to make sure that the public is safe from any product that’s running through there.

Russel: I would say that pipeliners share that. We want our operations to be safe.

There’s a gentleman who did a podcast with me, and he talked about his experience with the Bellingham incident. He talks a lot about what’s unique about what we do in pipelining, where other kinds of critical infrastructure generally has a fence around it, you control access and control consequence inside the fence, that’s not the case with pipelining.

Pipelining, we’re running through neighborhoods and backyards. Even if we were way out in the countryside, at one point, there’s more people than there used to be, and they’re growing up next to the pipelines.

Then one of the things that’s really interesting about what you’re talking about with the Satartia incident is the nature of what the fluid did, given where it was in the environment at the time, and how that CO2 drifted down the hillside versus what you would expect it to do, which is to go up into the atmosphere and dissipate.

Jack: That’s correct.

Russel: I’m sure part of that was just the sheer size of the leak.

Jack: Yeah, it was the sheer size. Again, the particular incident there was a bad incident. It was October of that same year, there was another incident where a valve froze open. There was actually more product released in the second incident than there was in that incident, but it was nowhere near the effect because the environment was different.

It was a controlled situation. We were able to maintain the cloud. It was a completely different circumstance. More product released, lasted longer, but nowhere near the effect that there was on that particular incident.

It was just that particular night was the perfect storm. There was a valve, the closest shut-off valve was approximately nine miles from where the actual rupture was. That pipe bled off for four and a half hours from the point. You heard a roar for four and a half hours of CO2 from just 9 miles of that product inside that pipe.

The incident that took place several months later with the valve, it actually bled for…I think it was about 26 hours before we ever got it shut off. Again, we were able to control it, working with the operators. It wasn’t the same effect. More product, the same…

[crosstalk]

Russel: Again, I think that’s a real important takeaway for pipeliners in this conversation, is that, for the first responder, every incident is unique.

Jack: That’s correct. That’s another thing I try to…

[crosstalk]

Russel: There is no recurring incident in the first responder rules. They’re all equal.

Jack: Never. I’ve learned that, in my nine years in emergency management, in my 25 years in law enforcement before that, nothing is ever the same. No matter how many times you think that it’s going to be, I guarantee you there’s going to be something different.

Russel: What you want to be doing is dealing with the differences. You don’t want to be dealing with just the basic understanding.

Jack: That’s correct.

Russel: The other thing that I think people don’t understand about first response is you need a checklist, you need a scenario guide so that you know what to deviate from.

Jack: That’s correct.

Russel: It’s not like you’ve got a cookbook, and this is exactly what you do. You got a cookbook so that you have as much of the thinking in place as possible, because that makes managing the differences easier.

Jack: Or, as you say, “We got to have our playbook ready to call some audibles.” Definitely.

Russel: [laughs] Exactly. Same thing. I want to talk about some of the initiatives that are going on right now, particularly the new API standards on stakeholder engagement, because I think that is, like a number of other standards that are relatively new, a process standard, it’s a performance standard.

It’s not a specification to do this, it’s like, “Here’s the things you ought to be doing and the outcomes you ought to be looking for.” How important is stakeholder engagement and that standard? What would you be telling pipeliners about that whole process?

Jack: Again, having a standard is one thing, but you’re really going to need to go above and beyond what the standard is. There’s always been a minimum standard on something, where in the past it was a guy coming by getting you to sign a piece of paper saying he talked to you. What does that really educate people?

If you’re just checking the box, you’re not doing what you need to do. They can give you whatever standard they want to, but you need to go above and beyond. You need to be at some of these town hall meetings. You need to meet the people that live in this community and become a part of it. Embed yourself in there.

That way, when there is an incident such as this, not only are the people going to be prepared, they’re going to be prepared to accept your help. They’re not going to see you as an enemy. You’re not an outsider coming in trying to fix something you messed up. You’re a part of that community that’s trying to fix a problem within that community.

If we just go by minimums, that’s part of the problem that we had before, we’re not stepping forward. You’re going to have these minimums, but you’re going to need to go above and beyond that minimum if we really want to keep everybody safe, everybody educated, and everybody trying.

Russel: I think that’s the difference. You’ve just summed up the difference between public awareness and stakeholder engagement. Public awareness is telling somebody something. Stakeholder engagement is building relationships that matter and endure and create value.

Jack: Again, I can’t speak for every pipeliner, but I know the one that now operate the pipeline through our county have really stepped up in what they’re doing. Exxon, they’ve listened to what I’ve talked about and they’ve really been pushing that initiative for me. They’re really doing a heck of a job in our area. I can say that about them in particular.

Russel: That’s good to know. My experience with Exxon is they’re an excellent operator. They’re very detailed. They’re very diligent.

Jack: They really do, again, go above and beyond. They’ve really stepped into the community as a whole all around.

Russel: In my career of 30-plus years working in oil and gas, I’ve probably negotiated 30-plus master services agreements. The hardest one I ever got was Exxon, getting through all the hurdles you had to get through as a contractor to be able to work with Exxon.

It was probably one of the most valuable ones I ever had because, once you get in, it’s not easy to join that club, but once you’re in that club, you know that they’ll work with you. It’s a different experience because their whole approach is very high bar to play, but once you play, it’s collaborative.

Jack: Again, that shows that the same things, just going above and beyond with the minimum that you have to do. Do you want to work for somebody that just requires a minimum amount, or do you want to work for somebody that requires you to excel? Who do you want servicing you? The same thing. It’s the same thing in public engagement, the same thing about public safety.

Russel: I hope that people listening to this take this to heart. One of the things we’ll do is, as we always do, we’ll put some information on the website about Jack. We’ll put some information in the show notes about what he does.

If you want a first responder to talk to, you want some coaching as to how to better find and better engage the first responder community, the emergency management community, I’m sure Jack would be glad to talk to you about that.

Jack: I would be more than glad to. Anytime.

Russel: Absolutely. Jack, thank you so much for coming on. Great conversation. If something comes up and we, as a podcast, can help you get a message out, please let me know. Platform is available to you and your peers whenever it’s needed.

Jack: Dude, as always, I really enjoy talking to you. You’re really fun to talk to, really informative, really knowledgeable, man. I really enjoyed it.

Russel: Thanks, Jack. I appreciate that.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of the Pipeliners Podcast and our conversation with Jack. Just a reminder before you go, you should register to win our customized Pipeliners Podcast YETI tumbler. Simply visit pipelinepodcastnetwork.com/win and enter yourself in the drawing.

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Russel: If you have ideas, questions, or topics you’d be interested in, please let me know on the Contact Us page at pipelinepodcastnetwork.com or reach out to me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. I’ll talk to you next week.