The US Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has awarded $14.8 million (€13.8 million) in grants for pipeline safety training and technological research.
The grants, authorised under the 2020 Protecting Our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety (PIPES) Act, add to the $64.4 million (€60.2 million) of funding in August for the safety of pipeline and underground natural gas storage operations.
The funds will support projects spanning from safety training and educational initiatives to advancements in safety tech, with damage prevention centres, community organisations, non-profits and six universities standing to benefit.
The largest share of $5.8 million (€5.4 million) has been allocated to support training for incident response related to transportation of gas or hazardous liquids transportation through pipelines.
This is followed by $4.3 million (€4 million) for research on carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and older, higher risk pipelines, $2.6 million (€2.4 million) for damage prevention by states, and $2 million (€1.9 million) for technical assistance.
Last month, PHMSA also proposed new rules to improve safety on the country’s gas distribution pipelines through the improvement of emergency response plans, integrity management plans and operation manuals.
The updated regulations came in response to the Massachusetts gas explosions in 2018, linked to a utility, which killed one person and injured 22 others.
