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Reasons for blast remain a
mystery three years later By Lisa
Kocian, Globe Staff | April 24, 2005
Something went wrong at 65 Main St., leading to
an explosion that demolished the house and killed two little girls.
But how and why did gas leak in, priming the
building for the blast? And who should be held responsible?
Almost three years later, those questions
remain unanswered.
Heath and Tara Carey, parents of Violet and
Iris Carey, who were killed in the July 24, 2002, explosion in Hopkinton, have
filed a wrongful death lawsuit against NStar Gas Co., which provided natural gas
to the house; the owners of the building; and Inner-Tite Corp., the maker of a
piece of equipment used in the house's gas system. The case is to go to trial
this year.
''It is a disgrace upon NStar that their lack
of responsibility in protecting their customers has taken the lives of two
innocent children with their whole lives ahead of them," the Careys said in a
recent statement to the Globe.
But in formal responses to the Carey lawsuit,
which was filed in October 2002, NStar and the other defendants have denied the
Careys' allegations.
NStar spokesman Mike Durand would not comment
on the details of the case, but he said natural gas is a safe fuel. ''We do
everything in our power to make sure equipment is well maintained and
up-to-date. . . . We take our job as a distribution company very seriously.
Safety of our customers is a top priority," he said.
Durand called the case a ''horrible accident"
and said, ''We never want to lose sight of the tragic loss the Careys
experienced, and we will never forget what happened that day."
Paul Cummings, the attorney for landlords
Leonard and Anne-Marie Pearson, said his clients maintained the property
adequately and have denied they contributed to the cause of the explosion.
Calls to Holden-based Inner-Tite Corp. were not
returned, and the company's attorney, Patrick T. Voke, declined to comment. But
in its formal response to the lawsuit, Inner-Tite stated that any damages to the
Careys were the fault of unnamed ''third parties," and that its part, called an
adaptor or transition fitting, ''conformed to the state of the art and was in
compliance with applicable government regulations and standards."
Not all gas equipment inside a house is the
responsibility of the gas company. NStar's responsibility ends at the meters,
which were in the basement at 65 Main St. From the meter, the gas line running
to appliances generally belongs to the property owners. Tenants are responsible
for their own appliances.
The Careys' attorneys, Edward M. Swartz and
Alan L. Cantor, allege that a leak opened up in a high-pressure segment of the
gas line in the basement that was NStar's responsibility. NStar, the attorneys
say, had allowed its equipment to rust in a damp environment.
The attorneys contend that the transition
fitting made by Inner-Tite came apart because it was corroded. And they point to
a deposition they took from an NStar employee who said he saw rust on some gas
company equipment in the basement during a routine visit.
An investigation by the state Department of
Telecommunications and Energy found in 2003 that NStar had violated a number of
federal regulations in its service to the house -- including allowing corrosion
to build up on the system -- and the state imposed a $200,000 fine. But the
investigation, overseen by the department's Pipeline Engineering and Safety
Division, stopped short of blaming the company for the disaster.
Chris Bourne, director of that division, said
the state simply was not able to pinpoint the source of the leak, so it could
not say that NStar violations led to the blast.
NStar disputes the state's findings that there
were any violations at all. It has filed an appeal, saying the findings were
based on ''misinterpretations and misapplications" of federal regulations.
Durand, the NStar spokesman, pointed to
extensive tests done for the state by Massachusetts Materials Research Inc. of
West Boylston, a materials testing lab.
The laboratory found that the Inner-Tite part
was corroded and broken, but it could not determine if it was broken before the
blast -- or if the damage was caused by the blast itself.
Durand said that if those tests could not
identify what caused the explosion, it might never be clear how the gas escaped.
''It did not pinpoint an exact cause," he said.
''Personally, I'm not sure what else could be done to discover that."
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