Matt Seeboth

California's Air Resources Board voted to phase out hexavalent chromium at the state's 117 chrome-plating facilities, with decorative operations required to stop by 2030 and functional operations getting until 2039. That single regulatory action has done more to accelerate the trivalent chrome conversation nationally than a decade of environmental advocacy did on its own. Shops outside California are watching closely, because CARB rules have a track record of becoming the de facto national...

Two Ways to Push the Same Electrons Both systems do the same job: they turn the pipeline into the cathode in its own corrosion cell so the steel stops giving up electrons to the surrounding soil. The difference is where those electrons come from. A galvanic system relies on a more reactive metal — magnesium, zinc, or aluminum — that corrodes on purpose so the pipeline doesn't have to. An impressed current system (ICCP) uses an external DC power supply (a rectifier) to push current through...

PHMSA has proposed the first major rewrite of federal pipeline repair standards in more than twenty years, and it's the kind of regulatory update that doesn't grab headlines but changes how integrity and CP data get used day to day.