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there are a couple more there," energy analyst Kevin Book said. "They just added them without saying anything."
• The new conditions were added four months after the pipeline safety agency sent TransCanada two warning letters last year about defects and other construction problems on the Keystone Gulf Coast Pipeline, which extends from Oklahoma to the Texas Gulf Coast.
• "From the start of welding, TransCanada experienced a high weld rejection rate," said one letter dated Sept. 26. Over 72 percent of welds required repairs during one week. In another week, TransCanada stopped welding work after 205 of 425 welds required repair.
• Inspections by the safety agency found TransCanada wasn't using approved welding procedures to connect pipes, the letter said. The company had hired welders who weren't qualified to work on the project because TransCanada used improper procedures to test them, the letter said. In order to qualify to work on a pipeline, welders must have recent experience using approved welding procedures and pass a test of their work.
• The weld failure rates are "horrible," said Robert Bea, professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. "The level of defects is indeed cause for alarm and indicative of something that is going on in the Keystone organization that isn't satisfactory."
• In high-risk projects such as nuclear submarines or nuclear power plants, even one-tenth of a percent rate of bad welds would be cause for deep concern, Bea said. He is a certified welder and was an expert consultant on the construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline in the 1970s.
• "In this case, you are talking about a pipeline that has requirements on its performance that rival those of a nuclear power plant," he said.
• Another letter, dated Sept. 10, said a government inspector witnessed TransCanada officials investigating dents in pipeline that had been laid without first sufficiently clearing rock from trenches or from soil used as backfill. The same letter said coating that protects pipeline from corrosion was damaged by weld splatter because a contractor hadn't followed the company's welding procedures. Eventually, pipeline was excavated in 98 places to make coating repairs.
• Dents and damaged coatings are serious defects because they can weaken pipes and lead to failures, Bea said.
• Davis Sheremata, a spokesman for TransCanada, cautioned against drawing a connection between construction problems found on the southern leg between Cushing, Oklahoma, and Nederland, Texas, and conditions placed on the northern

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