LAS VEGAS, NEVADA—There's a longtime belief here at the shebeen that pipelines leak, and that pipelines always leak because the people who construct and manage them care more about the money they can make off the poison within than they do about the consequences that occur whenever pipelines leak, and pipelines always leak.

And sometimes, as The Omaha World-Herald tells us, they might kill people, too.

Phillip W. Hennig, 59, lived about a quarter-mile from where the leak occurred in the interstate pipeline, said his brother, Alan Hennig, who also lives nearby. "He went to investigate the smell and was overcome by the vapors," said Alan Hennig, 55… The leak occurred in an above-ground portion of the 8-inch-diameter underground line sometime before 9:20 p.m. Monday. By the time authorities realized that there was a leak and went toward its source, Hennig's body was in an area too dangerous to reach. Information on precisely where and when he died was not immediately available. The leak led to the closure of a stretch of U.S. Highway 75 north of Tekamah in both directions. Because anhydrous ammonia continued to leak Tuesday, the highway was to remain closed into today, said Bruce Heine of Magellan Midstream Partners, the pipeline company. About 40 people in 23 homes within a 2-mile radius of the leak were evacuated Monday night, and it was uncertain when they would be allowed to return, Heine said. Magellan was working with the affected residents to cover their expenses associated with the evacuation, he said. Air quality was improving, Heine said Tuesday afternoon, "but not enough to allow residents to return home."

It hasn't been the greatest year for Magellan Midstream Partners. But it's been a worse one for Philip Hennig and the people who knew him, and his neighbors, and another small place in the country where the little timebombs are stored.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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