Two Decades of Spills

Since 1990, more than 110 million gallons of mostly crude and petroleum products have spilled from the nation’s mainland pipeline network. More than half of it occurred in three states — Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana — where more pipelines exist. 


Bill McKibben had these comments. 

Yesterday, the front page of the New York Times carried one of those stories that reminds you why it’s a good thing we have reporters.

Two weeks after a State Department report, speaking in the hermetically sealed tones of bureaucrats, predicted ‘minimal environmental impact’ from the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, the Times investigation found that in fact pipelines already crisscrossing America are leaking constantly and disastrously, that the federal agency assigned to protect them is so chronically understaffed, and that as a result they’ve left the “too much of the regulatory control in the hands of pipeline operators themselves.”

Not surprisingly, this  “self-regulation” works about as well as fox oversight of the poultry industry. For instance, in Michigan a 35-mile stretch of the Kalamazoo River “once teeming with swimmers and boaters, remains closed nearly 14 months after an Enbridge Energy pipeline hemorrhaged 843,000 gallons of oil that will cost more than $500 million to clean up.”

And, “this summer, an Exxon Mobil pipeline carrying oil across Montana burst suddenly, soiling the swollen Yellowstone River with an estimated 42,000 gallons of crude just weeks after a company inspection and federal review had found nothing seriously wrong.”

These are the kind of concerns that caused the Republican governor and senator from Nebraska to last week demand that the White House refuse a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, which will cross, among other features, the Sand Hills of the Cornhusker State, not to mention the Oglalla Aquifer.  And the pipeline will carry oil that’s actually hardly oil at all—in the words of the Times story,  what comes from the tar sands of Alberta is “a gritty mixture that includes bitumen, a crude drawn from Canadian oil sands that environmentalists argue is more corrosive and difficult to clean when spilled.”

The tarsands are a mess at their origin, where an area the size of European nations has been wantonly trashed to get at the oil, wrecking indigenous cultures and lives. They’re a mess at the end, when refineries will turn them into gasoline that, when burnt, carry enough carbon to, in the words of NASA’s James Hansen, mean “game over” for the climate.

But the Times story also makes painfully clear that they’re a mess in the middle. The good news is President Obama can stop them all by himself. We’ll find out before the year is out whether he listens more to the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal (an enthusiastic backer of the pipeline), or the front page of the New York Times. Whether, that is, he listens to money or to science.

Protesting Keystone XL Pipeline

Protesters marching from the Canadian Embassy to the White House to condemn the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

Yesterday was the last day to make a public comment regarding the proposed Keystone XL pipeline which is planned to carry tar sands oil from 

Canada to the US.

One of the commenters was the US Environmental Protection Agency which urged the Department of State to extend its review of TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline, arguing regulators have not adequately measured the project's potential harm to air quality or sensitive areas along the route.

In comments released by the agency Tuesday, EPA recommended better analysis of oil spill risks, further scrutiny of alternative routes and more work on how to diminish potential impacts to communities near the pipeline.

The $13 billion project would carry Canadian oil sands about 1,660 miles from Alberta to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. 

"Pipeline oil spills are a very real concern, as we saw during the two pipeline spills in Michigan and Illinois last summer," said the letter by Cynthia Giles, EPA's assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance.

Giles was referring to last year's leaks on Enbridge Energy Partners' systems. She added that two leaks in the past month on TransCanada's original Keystone Pipeline underscored the need to carefully consider the expansion route and the company's plans for preventing and detecting spills.

"We remain concerned that relying solely on pressure drops and aerial surveys to detect leaks may result in smaller leaks going undetected for some time, resulting in potentially large spill volumes," Giles said.

EPA recommended that State require TransCanada to increase the number of shutoff valves in places where the pipeline passes close to the water table or to sensitive areas such as the Ogallala Aquifer, which spans most of Nebraska. 

"If a spill did occur, the potential for oil to reach groundwater in these areas is relatively high given shallow water table depths and the high permeability of the soils overlying the aquifer," Giles said. "In addition, we are concerned that crude oil can remain in the subsurface for decades, despite efforts to remove the oil and natural microbial mediation."

The agency also wants more information from TransCanada about what chemical diluents it expects to add to the crude to reduce viscosity in the line. A draft environmental review issued by the State Department in April said that "the exact composition may vary between shippers and is considered proprietary information."

Giles pointed to Enbridge's July 2010 spill in Marshall, Michigan, where high benzene levels detected in the air prompted a voluntary evacuation of the area.

State announced late Monday that it would schedule another round of public comment before making a decision on the application by the end of the year. It said it would host public meetings in each of the five states -- Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas -- along the pipeline's proposed route. Another meeting will be held in Washington. 

US closes TransCanada Keystone pipeline

After a series of oil spills, twelve in the last twelve months and the second spill in May, the United States Department of Transportation has ordered the TransCanada Corporation to suspend operation of its one-year-old Keystone 1 pipeline, which carries oil extracted from oil sands in the Canadian province of Alberta to the United States. The so-called "corrective action order" was issued by the department's Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

"Effective immediately, this order prevents TransCanada from restarting operations on their Keystone crude oil pipeline until P.H.M.S.A. is satisfied with the ongoing repairs and is confident that all immediate safety concerns have been addressed," the agency said. It issued the order in response to two incidents in May involving oil leaks from small-diameter pump-station pipe fittings.

Transcanada's Keystone1 is under particular scrutiny because the company has applied to build and operate a much larger pipeline, the Keystone XL, which will run from Canada all the way to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. That pipeline will pass under some of the Midwest's most productive farmland and through its major aquifer.

Just last month, the Keystone 1 pipeline suffered two leaks, according to the Sierra Club, one of which involved over 10,000 gallons of oil. Leaks could prove dangerous and economically damaging.

Environmental experts have raised concerns about the possibilities of leaks from Keystone XL, in part because TransCanada has in the past been granted waivers that effectively allow it to use thinner steel than would normally be required in the United States. They add that the company's s pipelines are particularly vulnerable because oil from tar sands is more corrosive than conventional oil and is pumped under higher pressures and temperatures.

"I find that the continued operation of the pipeline without corrective measures would be hazardous to life, property and the environment," Jeffrey Wiese, an administrator at the department, wrote in issuing the order.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has to decide whether to approve the Keystone XL project and is expected to render her opinion by the end of the year. In reaching a decision, she will have to weigh both energy and environmental concerns to determine whether the pipeline is in the national interest.

While oil from Canada's oil sands is dependable fuel from a friendly neighbor, it comes with environmental costs because extracting oil from oil sands results in heavy carbon dioxide emissions and can destroy ecosystems.