Pipeline upkeep and safety during maintenance

Chemicals, waste and other potentially harmful materials accidentally spilled in workplaces can enter the environment through drains and watercourses and seep into the ground and contaminate the soil or groundwater. Such spills are a major source of concern to both state environmental protection organisations and to national bodies such as Safe Work Australia, which has introduced its Code of Practice for Managing Risks of Hazardous Chemicals in the Workplace.

The code says companies must develop good handling procedures for workplaces to minimise the chance of such spills, and also have a spill management protocol in place to make sure spills are safely cleaned up. It stipulates that those conducting businesses or undertakings must manage risks associated with the use, handling, generating or storing of hazardous chemicals in a workplace, including identifying foreseeable hazards and eliminating the risk so far as practicable.

One method of stopping and sealing pipelines that is suitable in Australasia for maintenance and environmental protection applications involves inflatable pipe stoppers that can be rapidly deployed, easily transported and widely applied in remote, temporary and permanent industrial situations.

“Pipelines are a major component of such a risk management strategy and, while many companies are becoming aware of the issues involved, others have yet to understand them fully,” says James Maslin, national sales manager for Air Springs Supply Pty Ltd, which distributes a range of Pronal inflatable stoppers suitable for all types of pipelines including concrete, cast iron, steel, stainless steel and PVC.

“The issues involved in pipeline maintenance and safety are particularly acute during the maintenance season, when companies may be handling increased quantities and types of hazardous materials associated with cleaning, vehicle maintenance and plant upkeep, for example.”

The common factor with maintenance, testing and emergency situations is that they need stoppers that can be rapidly and securely deployed to provide primary or secondary safety and environmental security as required by both Safe Work Australia and state environmental protection agencies.

“Sometimes such stoppers are permanently located in pipelines for instant remote inflation with compressed air or other gas where there is a risk of toxic runoff at different stages of production, or where spillages occur,” says Maslin.

“In other instances they are used to seal off sections of pipe where leaks are occurring, serving the dual role of enabling pressurisation of that section so leaks can be detected, then protecting the men in the pipeline from any product flows while they work to fix the problem.”

Pronal inflatable pipe stoppers are used for maintenance, testing and emergency tasks in applications as diverse as oil and gas delivery, industrial and municipal water and wastewater, and pollution prevention in mining, energy and industrial projects where sealing and testing operations need to be conducted not only with complete safety and environmental security, but also with considerable speed, to maintain flows of liquids and gases.

Ongoing protection against contamination of waterways from spills into water and sewerage lines can be provided by Pronal’s OPAP and OFR Pollu-Plug stoppers, which are permanently and unobtrusively fitted in water and sewerage lines ready for instantaneous inflation by remote triggering as soon as an emergency arises in industrial, civil and municipal applications.

When pipelines are not subject to an emergency, the uninflated stopper allows normal non-polluted contents to pass beneath the elastomer-coated Pollu-Plug, which in its deflated condition mirrors the inside of the top of the pipeline in which it is located.