The U.S. Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), on Wednesday, Sept. 29  announced the award of $98,800,117 grant to territories, tribes, and states to support pipeline and hazardous material safety programs.

According to the announcement, the money would be used to support 11 safety programs at the community level. Six out of the 11 programs are pipeline-related.

“States and community groups play an important role in addressing the safety challenges associated with pipelines and hazardous materials,” said PHMSA Acting Administrator, Tristan Brown.

“The grants announced today are essential in supporting the resource needs of states and localities to effectively enforce safety standards, train response personnel, and equip everyday citizens with the necessary tools to protect themselves from transportation-related accidents,” he added.

Out of nearly a hundred million dollar award in grant funding, $69 million would be used to fund six pipeline safety programs as follows:

• A total of $58 million would go to Pipeline Safety State Base to help ramp up the support for statewide inspection and pipeline safety regulations enforcement for hazardous liquid and natural gas pipelines.
• $4.8 million allotted for Underground Natural Gas Storage. The money would be used to boost the inspection and safety requirement enforcement efforts for underground natural storage facilities. The efforts would help mitigate incidences of leakages like the October 2015 incident at Los Angeles’s Aliso Canyon Storage Facility.  
• A $2.1 million grant would be used for Pipeline Safety Technical Assistance to support the involvement of the local community in pipeline line safety issues.  
• $1.8 million was allotted for the Competitive Academic Agreement Program to help spur and utilize research for innovations, advanced pipeline technologies, and knowledge dissemination.
• $1.7 million was allocated to State Damage Prevention Program to boost the state’s efforts in addressing pipeline failures and damages caused by activities such as excavation.
• $1.1 million grant allocated for One-Call to help improve state one-call notification systems. The grant will also help to boost damage prevention education as well as enforcement efforts.

Additionally, the multimillion ward provided $28 million to support five programs around local and state hazardous materials programs nationwide.