Full Title: Testimony of the Pipeline Safety Trust
Author(s): Bill Caram
Publisher(s): Pipeline Safety Trust
Publication Date: July 22, 2025
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
The Pipeline Safety Trust was created after the Olympic Pipe Line tragedy in Bellingham, Washington in 1999. That entirely preventable failure spilled nearly a quarter-million gallons of gasoline into a beautiful salmon stream in the heart of our community which eventually ignited and killed three boys. The U.S. Justice Department was so appalled at the operations of the pipeline company and equally appalled at the lax oversight from the federal government, that they asked the federal courts to set aside money from the settlement to create the Pipeline Safety Trust as an independent national watchdog organization over the pipeline industry and its regulators.
We work to ensure that no other community must endure the senseless grief that Bellingham has had to experience from a pipeline tragedy. Sadly, there have been many senseless pipeline tragedies and disasters since Bellingham. I am here today, hoping that we can continue to work together to help move towards our shared goal of zero incidents.