A decade ago, the situation was worse, with 22 deaths and 120 injuries in 1994. The worst year in the past decade was 1996, when 53 were killed and 127 injured. Stacy Gerard, chief administrator at the Office of Pipeline Safety, said OPS has been hard-pressed to ensure that all the new measures handed down are enacted. "We did have a period of time where the mandates were more than the office could keep up with," she said. "We've caught up with the backlog. Of 77 (mandates) coming into the year 2000, we've addressed 90%, and we're current with 45 more mandates (in the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002.)"