Pipeline safety officials: No cause determined in fatal blast

Cleaning up
Cleanup of the site of an oil pipeline explosion in Clearwater, Minnesota, which occurred in November.
Photo courtesy of Clearwater County

(AP) - Pipeline safety officials said Thursday they have not reached any conclusions about the cause of an oil pipeline explosion and fire that killed two men in northwestern Minnesota last November.

They said that a federal Office of Pipeline Safety spokesman, Damon Hill, misspoke when he told Wisconsin Public Radio this past week that "it looks like there were improper procedures conducted."

Patricia Klinger, the office's director of external communications, said the investigation has not been completed and no report has been issued.

She said the question of whether or not anyone followed improper procedures was only one of several questions that investigators are still trying to answer.

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"This was obviously a mistake on our part."

"This was obviously a mistake on our part," Klinger said in a phone interview from Washington.

Hill said Thursday he "misspoke" and that it was not his intent to imply that anyone did anything improper.

Dave Musanti Jr. and Steve Arnovich, of Superior, Wis., were killed while working on an Enbridge Energy Partners LLP pipeline near Clearbook when it exploded Nov. 28. They were welders from Enbridge's office in Superior, part of a crew that was replacing a pipe section where a pinhole leak had been found and repaired weeks earlier.

Enbridge spokeswoman Denise Hamsher said the company has been careful not to speculate about any parts of the investigation until the entire investigation is complete. Any speculation would be unfair to the victims' families and unfair to "a rigorous and robust investigation effort," she said.

Hamsher also said it was incorrect that the Office of Pipeline Safety had ordered Enbridge to reduce pressure in the pipeline until the cause of the explosion could be determined. She said Enbridge had already reduced the pressure on its own - before the accident - and informed federal regulators.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)