Tar sands activists stand strong as State Department announces support for Keystone XL pipeline

Protestors gather peacefully outside the White House against the Keystone XL pipeline | Photo Credit: Josh Lopez

It’s like the old adage: If the State Department says a pipeline provides a limited environmental risk, does anyone believe them?

In the case of the Keystone XL pipeline it is almost unfathomable. And yet, this morning the State Department released their final Environmental Impact Assessment for the Keystone XL pipeline, casting their support behind it. Their faith in the project is summed up in this memorable line from the Executive Summary: “Crude oil spills are not likely to have toxic effects on the general public.”

To the casual observer, all of this may seem reasonable. But TransCanada already has another spill-prone pipeline – the Keystone I – in operation. As Emma Pullman writes at DeSmogBlog:

The State Department Environmental Assessment of the already-constructed Keystone I pipeline predicted a maximum of 1 spill approximately every 7 years. Similarly, TransCanada’s projections suggest 11 significant spills over Keystone XL’s pipeline’s 50 year operational lifetime.

Transcanada’s Keystone I pipeline has already sprung 12 leaks in the past year alone, spilling nearly 30,000 gallons of bitumen crude. In May, EPA forced TransCanada to shut down the pipeline for several days until it met increased safety standards. Then, in June, the Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) issued a Corrective Action Order, stopping use of the pipeline until safety problems had been corrected.

Pullman also reviewed an independent analysis performed by University of Nebraska professor Dr. John Stansbury, which argues that TransCanada used faulty information to calculate safety assessments and instead predicts 91 significant spills over the pipeline’s operational lifetime.

Additionally, Pullman shares that predictions for the pipeline’s eventual failure are exceptionally generous:

The State Department’s own calculations expect Keystone XL to leak due to flooding and washout only once every 87,800 years. Furthermore, it expects an incident due to corrosion once every 3,400 years. After July’s ExxonMobil Yellowstone spill, it seems outrageous to claim that flooding and washout will claim a pipeline once every 90,000 years. With climate change, there will be increased rainfall and extreme weather, and current models of erosion prediction will be inaccurate.

TransCanada’s track record with Keystone I is poor, and it seems foolhardy to trust them with the drinking water for two million people, the health of hundreds of communities, and for numerous ecologically vulnerable regions.

A different kind of oil spill

Tar Sands bitumen crude in Michigan's Kalamazoo River | Photo Credit: Mic Stolz

One of the many unsettling aspects of the Keystone XL pipeline is the extremely corrosive oil it carries.  As Anthony Swift writes at the NRDC:

“The brief operating history of the Keystone pipeline provides more evidence that our conventional pipeline design regulations are inadequate for pipelines moving corrosive raw tar sands, or diluted bitumen, at high pressure. …The findings of a formal investigation by the North Dakota Public Service Commission (PSC) of the 21,000 gallon Keystone leak provided yet more evidence that safety regulations for conventional pipelines are inadequate for high pressure raw tar sands pipelines. The report found that the pipeline failure was not due to “any material or manufacturing deficiency” and that the “chemical compositions, mechanical properties and microstructure” met minimum design requirements for conventional pipelines. The report went on to state that the work required to prevent similar failures included 1) using stronger, thicker materials and 2) installing engineered pipe supports. In other words, conventional pipeline standards aren’t good enough for this pipeline.”

Workers are still struggling to clean up last May’s major spill of tar sands crude in Michigan’s Kalamazoo river when an Enbridge pipeline leaked 819,000 gallons. Unlike standard oil spills, raw tar sands bitumen is nearly solid at room temperature and requires dilution with natural gas liquids for transport. When spills occur, bitumen sinks to the bottom of rivers and water sources, becoming extremely hard to remove safely using conventional methods.

Mark Durno, on-site spill coordinator for the EPA says “The submerged oil is a real story — it’s a real eye-opener. … In larger spills we’ve dealt with before, we haven’t seen nearly this footprint of submerged oil, if we’ve seen any at all.” Cleanup crews have been forced to improvise extreme measures, including dragging riverbeds with chains to release the submerged crude back into the water. Even then, more than 200 acres are still laden with oil a year after the spill.

With the Keystone XL pipeline expected to cross more than 2,000 waterways—including the major Ogalalla aquifier—the implications of a major tar sands crude spill are very scary indeed.

Protestors draw a line in the Tar Sands

Protestors gather peacefully outside the White House in opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline | Photo Credit: Ben Powless

In anticipation of the State Department release this morning, protestors outside the White House readied a new approach. Today’s volunteers will hold a new banner reading: “OBAMA: THIS IS OUR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT” as they stand against the pipeline in civil disobedience.

All this week, thousands of protesters have gathered at the White House protesting the Keystone XL. 385 people have been arrested so far, with more expected to risk arrest through civil disobedience every day until September 3. Those already arrested include prominent environmental leaders like Climate Action Network’s David Turnbull, 350.org’s Bill McKibben, actors Tantoo Cardinal and Margot Kidder, plus farmers and ranchers from regions threatened by the Keystone XL. Together they’re building the largest act of civil disobedience for the environment in US history.

The Tar Sands Action group calls the Keystone XL ‘the fuse to the largest carbon bomb on the planet’, and says, quite rightly, that President Obama alone has the power to approve or reject the Keystone XL Pipeline.

“Obama will decide as soon as September whether to honor his campaign pledge to create a clean-energy economy, or to lock us in as a nation that cooks and distills filthy tar sands for much of our energy. Building this pipeline will be an economic and moral setback for clean-energy sources of all types. This is a line in the sand.”

The President returns from his vacation in Martha’s Vineyard this weekend to dedicate a new monument to civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King believed that non-violent protest was the best way to galvanize social change. As Obama stands at the mall to honour him this weekend, we hope he looks across to the peaceful protest at the White House fence and makes the connection.

Stand against the Keystone XL Pipeline! Sign the petition, spread the word or find out how you can join the protesters in Washington, DC.

Category: Fresh Air