Dan Nass/Contributing Photographer

State leaders announced a new safety standard for Connecticut power plants on Tuesday. The new standard comes in the wake of the February 2010 explosion at the Kleen Energy natural gas plant, which killed six workers and hospitalized 27 more.

According to The Middletown Press, Middletown Mayor Sebastian N. Giuliano announced the new standard as he reflected on the gas explosion.

“The margin for error in these types of processes is paper thin,” he said. “We still don’t know what went wrong, but we did determine that something needed to be done.”

The gas explosion occurred when a “gas blow” technique was used to flush pipes with natural gas. The new safety standard, NFPA 56, will prohibit the practice of flammable gas to clean piping. The standard instead calls for alternative methods like using compressed air, water, or nitrogen.

Many of the state leaders present at the announcement expressed their hopes that the new measure, which has already been adopted in Connecticut, will soon spread to other states.

“These power plants are built all over the country and if it happened here, it could happen somewhere else,” Giuliano said.