Sewer health is never the leading safety concern when it comes to oil refineries and chemical plants. Commonly regarded as a low priority item, managers are more apt to set their sights on high pressure and high temperature equipment. But water is the lifeline of these facilities. In not treating sewer and water lines with the same care and precision they unwittingly invite immense risk to equipment, as well as extreme health and safety vulnerabilities including fire danger, plant-level destruction, and loss of human life.
Consider if you will, the common occurrence of flooding and ponding caused by plugged sewer lines inside “units.” No big deal, right? Wrong. True, a seemingly good-enough solution is to blast the line with a high pressure jetter and release a small amount of hardened debris. While this remedy may temporarily shock the line into flowing again, it is unfit for any line that is cracked or corroded. In fact, jetting a line with more than 3000 psi often causes more damage.
An ill-flowing pipe creates a back-up, and a back-up can consist of a variety of fluids ranging from disgusting to dangerous, or some combination thereof. Oily water sewer, for example, is highly flammable and must be immediately evacuated from the facility or poses the risk of fire danger and explosion, as well as the environmental impact of fluid leaking through broken pipes into the ground and water table.
Why, one might ask, if this issue is so paramount to health, safety, and plant reliability is it so often overlooked? The answer is simple and may shock you. Most people simply don’t realize that these underground pipes which are so critical to plant infrastructure can be repaired and replaced using technology that does not require digging up the old lines. Modern day Trenchless Sewer Repair offers a wide array of complete remedies for pressure and gravity systems including point repair for localized failures, ultraviolet relining, pipe bursting for collapsed lines, and seamless aramid fabric (Kevlar) application. This can all be done without the massive disruption of digging up railways, critical roadways, assets, and units, effectively antiquating all of that into a thing of the past. The best part is that this minimally invasive restoration is done at the cost of mere pennies on the dollar to digging.
Historically plants have neglected to inspect their process sewers because once the infrastructure has proven to be corroded or is damaged, QQQ requires that it must be fixed prior to being put back into service. These restorations can now be done “IN PLACE” using nonmetallic piping, third-party-tested materials designed to last 100+ years in water, natural gas, and oil applications for gravity and pressurized piping systems.
With these kinds of solutions available, the question is abundantly clear, “Why would anyone NOT immediately run to repair all non functioning and under functioning sewer lines?”
Please contact Blake Derango at blake.derango@motivo-group.com 208.270.1122 with questions or for more information.
