Pipes aren't things you really want to have to think about, and you usually only do so when something goes wrong. The same holds whether it's a blocked u-bend in your house or, you know, an oil pipeline exploding.
Besides the Colonial explosion, there is an ongoing protest against Energy Transfer Partners LP's Dakota Access pipeline project, which is designed to bring oil south from the Bakken shale. Meanwhile, activists sympathetic to the protesters in North Dakota sabotaged several cross-border pipelines carrying Canadian crude oil into the U.S.
