Last week, a leak in the existing Keystone pipeline spilled 210,000 gallons of oil across South Dakota. The material in the pipeline isn’t actually crude oil in the normal sense, it’s “dilbit”—tarry bitumen diluted with a mix of naptha, propane, butane, and … whatever. This was far from the first time this slop spilled from the Keystone pipeline.
This week’s leak was grimly familiar for Bob Banderet, a rancher on the Keystone route in North Dakota, about 20 miles north of the spill. In 2011, Mr. Banderet said he had spotted “a geyser of oil shooting straight up in the air” from a Keystone pumping station near his property. He found the response by TransCanada to be flat-footed and opaque.
The proof that the pipeline can (and has) failed, and that TransCanada is neither speedy nor thorough in addressing issues, might seem to be a good reason to put the brakes on this decision.
The images of South Dakota grassland blemished by 210,000 gallons of leaked Canadian crude oil could not have come at a worse time for the Keystone Pipeline’s operator, TransCanada, which on Monday will ask regulators in Nebraska to approve a different pipeline despite fierce opposition.
Apparently this was a fine time for Nebraska regulators. Because despite the huge pool of goo still seeping into South Dakota, Nebraska gave the green light for more of the same.
TransCanada’s $8 billion Keystone XL pipeline got the go-ahead from the Nebraska Public Service Commission on Monday, clearing the last regulatory hurdle in a nine-year effort to build a line needed to carry thick crude oil from Alberta’s tar sands region to refineries on the Texas gulf coast.
Nebraska did give the proposed route of the pipeline a little nudge.
... the five-member commission rejected TransCanada’s preferred route and voted to approve an alternative route that would move the pipeline further east. The route of the new pipeline, which would carry 830,000 barrels a day of crude, would circumvent more of the state’s ecologically delicate Sandhills region.
The fact that they moved the pipe around the Sandhills—a lake-dotted region of grass-covered sand dunes that constitutes a critical flyway for many species of birds, as well as one of the largest and most complex wetland environments in the United States—is great. Except that for those in the new path of the pipeline. Just the fact that Nebraska regulators moved the path would seem to represent that they’re aware of potential leaks.
But then, it doesn’t take imagination to see what could go wrong. All it requires is a short trip up the road.
The commissioners who voted for the pipeline permit included Frank E. Landis, Jr., a lawyer first elected in 1988; Rod Johnson, a former Republican state legislator; and Tim Schram, a former county commissioner. The pipeline was opposed by newly elected Mary Ridder, a cattle rancher from the Sandhills region, and Chrystal Rhoades, who has worked with a variety of community organizations before becoming a commissioner. …
While TransCanada has promoted the pipeline project as a jobs creator, Rhoades said that “there was no evidence provided that any jobs created by the construction of this project would be given to Nebraska residents.”
She also said that TransCanada had failed to consult Nebraska’s Native American tribes. She noted that the company said it had consulted with the Southern Ponca Tribe, but Rhoades said that resides in Oklahoma. “This is the equivalent of asking a distant relative for permission to do a major construction in your backyard,” she wrote.
The narrow victory is sure to be appealed by environmental groups … and sure to be claimed as a triumph by Donald Trump.
If completed, the Keystone XL pipeline will carry more than 800,000 barrels of diluted bitumen from Canada to refineries in Texas … when it’s not spilling that material on Nebraska.