Advertisement

Keystone Pipeline Is Shut Down After Oil Spill In South Dakota

CREDIT: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
CREDIT: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Pipeline operator TransCanada shut down a section of its Keystone pipeline Sunday after about 187 gallons of crude oil spilled from the line in South Dakota, an accident that environmental groups say highlights the dangers of shipping oil by pipeline.

So far, TransCanada has said that “no significant impact to the environment has been observed” and that the company “immediately began efforts to shut down the pipeline” when it received the report of the spill. The company also said it has notified landowners in the region.

The Keystone pipeline ships about 500,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta, Canada to refineries in Illinois and Texas. The section of pipe running from Alberta to Cushing, Oklahoma has been shut down and will remain closed until Friday at the earliest, but the bottom portion of the pipeline — which runs from Cushing to Texas — is still up and running.

The pipeline is the namesake for the Keystone XL pipeline, which President Obama rejected in November. Keystone XL would have provided additional oil-transporting infrastructure to the route — the proposed pipeline, if approved, would have carried up to 830,000 barrels of oil from Alberta’s tar sands each day. The State Department, in making its final recommendation to the president on the project, said the construction of the project “raises a range of concerns about the impact on local communities, water supplies, and cultural heritage sites.” Secretary of State John Kerry also cited climate change — the carbon-intensive tar sands oil that would have run through the pipeline would have been responsible for 181 million metric tons of carbon emissions every year — as part of the reason his department was recommending against approving the project.

Advertisement

Environmental groups said Monday that the older Keystone’s spill drives home the threat that Keystone XL would have posed to the environment. They also pointed out that the Keystone pipeline, which was approved by President George W. Bush in 2008, leaked oil 12 times in its first year of operation alone. On average, pipelines spill oil more often than trains — the other major form of oil transport — but oil train spills are often more catastrophic, as the trains have the potential to explode. An oil train derailment and explosion in 2013 in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec killed 47 people and completely destroyed a town square.

“TransCanada’s Keystone I disaster is a stark reminder that it’s not a question if a pipeline will malfunction, but rather a question of when. This is one of the reasons President Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline and it’s why he should reject all dangerous fossil fuel pipeline proposals,” Sierra Club’s Executive Director Michael Brune said in a statement.  TransCanada isn’t taking Obama’s rejection of Keystone XL without a fight. The company is suing the United States under the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying the country’s decision to deny Keystone XL’s permit was “arbitrary and unjustified.” And, environmental groups point out, there are other pipelines in the works in the United States that could pose just as much risk to people and the environment.

“This spill clearly reinforces the need for the Obama Administration to require a thorough environmental review for Enbridge’s Alberta Clipper and other efforts to expand its Midwestern tar sands pipeline system,” said Natural Resources Defense Council Canada Program Director Anthony Swift. “And that review should put protecting the public from oil infrastructure harm as the highest priority.”