HARTFORD – The use of flammable gas to clean pipes in state power plants will be banned and independent inspectors will have to be paid by firms building new generating facilities, under recommendations adopted Tuesday morning.
The new rules, some of which will be written into state regulations and others suggested for action from the governor and General Assembly, are aimed at eliminating industrial accidents such as the February explosion at the Kleen Energy plant in Middletown that killed six men.
The recommendations were approved by the panel named in the wake of the explosion by Gov. M. Jodi Rell and led by James Thomas, the former Commissioner of the State of Connecticut‘s Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, who is the acting commissioner of the Department of Public Safety.
“We really want to ban gas blows using flammable gas,” Thomas said during a morning meeting of the committee. Before the fatal explosion in Middletown, work crews were in the process of forcing highly flammable natural gas through high-pressure lines.
During the meeting in the Capitol complex, officials from the state Siting Council, which approves the location of new energy plants, said they expected to hold new plant developers to the ban on forcing gas through pipes.
John Olsen, president of the state AFL-CIO, said he wanted clear language requiring developers and builders to pay for qualified inspectors to oversee projects and assure local towns and cities that they do not have to foot the cost.