Resin used to seal pipe flanges against leaks in the nation’s largest district steam system, Manhattan’s 105-mile-long network, instead is a culprit in a pipe explosion last July that killed one person, severely burned two others and cost nearby businesses millions of dollars, says a new report probing the event.
The report by two outside consulting firms commissioned by New York City-based utility Con Edison says remnants of the epoxy used by a pipe-repair contractor months earlier had migrated from flange locations to adjacent steam traps, apparently clogging their ability to release water that had built up from heavy rain. Con Edison, which released the report several weeks before executives had intended when its conclusions were published in local media, has replaced the system’s 1,654 steam traps and promises other major fixes through 2009.