Colonial Pipeline says it could be ready to restart its Line 1 this week, meaning drivers throughout the Southeast will likely have to endure scattered gas station outages and price increases for at least a few more days.
The company is constructing a temporary bypass line around the leaking segment of pipe, which spilled an estimated 336,000 gallons of gasoline in Shelby County, Ala. and shut down a major part of America's gasoline distribution system for more than a week.
"We anticipate being able to restart the line through the bypass this week," Colonial Pipeline public information officer Don Pozin said Sunday afternoon. "There's a lot of factors that can go into restart time, but our projections suggest that it will be this week.
"A more precise timetable really depends on a number of external factors, such as weather or other things that are outside the bounds of our control. At this time, we're staying with this week."
The bypass line would be about 500-700 feet long, Pozin said, and follow closely the route of the leaking pipeline.
Pozin said that allows pipeline workers to avoid the hazardous fumes around the assumed site of the leak.
Work crews have been limited in their access the site to make repairs or remove the spilled gas for days at a time due to high levels of gasoline and benzene vapors at the site.
"What [the bypass] does, is it allows us to work in a safe area, construct the pipeline and be able to connect it back to the existing line," he said.
Federal, state and local authorities on scene have said the vapors do not pose a health threat to local residents, or the nearby cities of Helena or Alabaster. Pozin said the company has installed multiple blockages to prevent gasoline from reaching the Cahaba River, which is home to numerous threatened and endangered species.
The leaking pipeline normally carries 1.3 million barrels of gasoline per day from refineries in Houston to distribution centers across the Southeast and East Coast. For now, Colonial is shipping gasoline on Line 2, normally used for diesel and other distillate products, to get around the leak but will not say how much of their product is currently going through.
How much longer might we have higher gas prices?
Colonial is the country's largest pipeline operator by volume and, according to its web site, delivers 105 million gallons of petroleum products daily to distributors who serve approximately 50 million consumers, mostly in the Southeast and East Coast.
Colonial has said that consumers in the Southeast are more likely to feel the impacts of the pipeline outage since the East Coast has more alternate sources available.
Gas stations in Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee have experienced outages and price spikes since the pipeline was shut down on Sept. 9, the day the leak was discovered.
The governors of six states have declared states of emergency allowing fuel delivery truckers to log longer hours on the highways to make deliveries until the situation is resolved.
Excavation put on hold
Friday, Colonial's plan was to dig out the leaking line and repair it in place. Now, those actions are being put on hold in favor of the bypass.
"We have focused on the bypass at this time," Pozin said. "We are still recovering product off of the pond, but work at the actual leak site because it was being impacted by the vapors, we have decided to go to the bypass solution.
"When that is constructed and we've got it back online, we'll be able to move more cautiously, with the health and safety of the workers being the primary concern, to be able to continue the work at the leak site."
Federal regulators from the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration are on scene to investigate the cause of the leak. Pozin said the DOT approved the plan to construct the bypass line and the agency would have to give authorization before the line is restarted.