Just How Old Are the Country’s Oil and Gas Pipelines?

That’s the question that Carl Weimer — executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, a nonprofit group that advocates for fuel transportation safety — sought to answer in going through records at the agency responsible for pipeline safety, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

Weimer came up with some interesting results. More than 70 percent of natural gas and hazardous liquid (including oil) pipelines were built before 1979. Only 9 percent of natural gas pipelines and 8 percent of hazardous liquid pipelines were built after 2000.

Aging infrastructure is the latest concern about the country’s millions of miles of pipelines. For more, see my series on pipeline safety.