If you are experiencing emotional distress related to natural or human-caused disasters, please call 1-800-985-5990 or text TalkWithUs to 66746 to connect with a trained crisis counselor from U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
The National Pipeline Survivor Network (NPS3) is a program of the Pipeline Safety Coalition that is working to facilitate the creation of a national grassroots-led movement for direct outreach and pipeline safety advocacy to local, regional, and national decision-makers. In the future, we hope to build NPS3 into an information hub serving individuals and communities directly impacted by pipeline infrastructure disasters and related traumatic events.
Initial organizational framework developed in August 2016: NPS3 Advisory Committee in circle, NPS3 Programs in sun rays, and possible Partner Organizations in three blocks below horizon. Pipeline Safety Coalition will continue to serve as convening organization, recruiting Advisory Committee members, and assisting in finalizing organizational framework, developing the mission, and operational strategies.
NPS3 has four primary goals:
- Provide a practical and supportive peer-to-peer network for survivors of pipeline-related disasters and traumatic events to transition from the experience of tragedy to proactive involvement in pipeline safety in their own communities and nationally.
- Provide public awareness and community education programs formulated by and for survivors of pipeline disasters and traumatic events that addresses the safety risks gas and hazardous liquids pipelines pose to individuals and communities.
- Provide a transparent and inclusive mechanism to encourage and empower victims of pipeline disasters and traumatic events to have an active role in the development of national gas and hazardous liquids pipeline safety regulations, standards, and policies.
- Provide brave spaces and direct non-violent actions to create a change of heart from a victim-focused and helpless culture of fear and vulnerability to an empowered culture of preparedness, self-reliance, and safety.
Pipeline Safety Coalition and our partners envision the NPS3 as a humanitarian and policy response to the urgent need to prevent future pipeline disasters.
Addressing this need will require keeping pipeline disasters (i.e., “accidents” and “incidents”[1]), as well as other traumatic events resulting from oil and gas pipeline infrastructure that might not be classified as accidents or incidents, in the public eye for long enough to improve regulations and develop public policies that are more protective of human lives and environmental resources.
NPS3 could play an essential role in both helping the public and decision-makers understand and address the local long-term consequences of such catastrophic yet low probability events as pipeline disasters, and in providing direct immediate, intermediate, and long-term care and humanitarian support to individuals and communities impacted by such disasters.