SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 10 submissions in the queue.
SoylentNews
The Colonial Pipeline spill has caused 6 states (Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, and North Carolina) to declare a state of emergency. Gasoline (petrol) prices on the east coast are likely to spike. Yet, most puzzling is how this vast emergency and its likely effect on cost of living has gone unnoticed by mainstream media outlets. The pipeline is owned by Koch Industries: is this why the media is silent?
[Are there any Soylentils in the affected area who can corroborate this story? Have you heard of the spill, seen long gas lines, or any price gouging? -Ed.]
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Six US States Declare Emergency after Major Gasoline Pipeline Spill; Media Almost Silent
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 86 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Portable, adj.:
Survives system reboot.
(Score: 4, Informative) by rts008 on Monday September 19 2016, @12:25PM
Let those who pushed so hard to get the pipelines clean up THEIR mess, and pay for it.
And this is exactly why the Native Americans are protesting the pipeline construction in the Dakota's.
Yet again, we(the citizens) are paying the price that should be assessed to the corp.'s who installed and allegedly maintain these pipelines.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday September 19 2016, @12:52PM
Pipelines leak, a lot, even when they're functioning normally. They only get fixed when it's economically advantageous to do so, and it's really expensive to find and fix pipeline leaks, so they go on for a long long time before being addressed.
If the contract for the pipeline included adequate monitoring and shutdown upon leak detection, a pipeline could be relatively environmentally friendly - but adequate monitoring and shutdown upon leak detection would make the pipeline so much more expensive that carriage by rail tanker would be cheaper. And, of course, rail tankers leak... occasionally catastrophically.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by rts008 on Monday September 19 2016, @01:08PM
And your point is...what, exactly?
If the money spent on pipeline mishap cleanup and repair over the decades, was spent on advancing clean power infrastructure instead, we would not be having this conversation.
Instead, the rich get richer at our expense, AND we have to pay to fix their fuck-ups, yet again. I'm sick and tired of it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday September 19 2016, @01:30PM
My point is: pipelines are a lot worse for the environment than most people think. They _can_ be operated cleanly, but at greater expense, and that's not why pipelines are built. Pipelines are built to save money.
"Advancing clean power infrastructure" is a noble goal, one I hope we pursue.
Meanwhile, your 401(k) is calling for higher returns, this quarter, and clean power infrastructure doesn't support that goal.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Monday September 19 2016, @01:37PM
Well, until your last sentence, we are in agreement.
There is no 'my 401k', that disappeared in 2008 with the 'crash'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @01:45PM
That makes 0 sense unless you did not invest your 401K into an Index fund, as all those stocks not only rebounded but also increased year over year.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @02:34PM
Unless you are just about to retire, your 401k probably shouldn't care less about 1 quarters performance and be invested for the long term.
America, long term, ROFLMAO.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @01:00PM
It seems a little early to use this particular spill to advance an existing agenda.
First we need to see why the pipeline failed in this particular spot.
Hopefully it was an external cause.
If not, then hopefully is was just localized poor maintenance.
If not, the hopefully just a small section is involved.
If not, and the the whole line is suspect, then it's time to hold somebody accountable.
If this is the case, then it doesn't seem right to neglect a critical piece of infrastructure while milking it for profits.
Such a senario should stick even to these owner's teflon suits.
This issues to raise are both liability looking back and ownership looking forward.
Something like a TVA might do well in running such a thing.
Just make sure it's not run by something like the EPA.
The folks on the Colorado river can attest that actually running this sort of thing is not a job for lawyers.
These days, it seems like an internal ultrasonic inspection should be fairly easy and routine?
What's the state of the art of pipeline inspection?
Such a discussion would be interesting here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @01:23PM
> First we need to see why the pipeline failed in this particular spot.
Do we? Sounds more like your goal is to focus on the trees and ignore the forest.
Are you, perhaps, on the spectrum?
Because the OP's point is that pipelines break all the damn time for all kinds of reasons and that's why people are protesting the dakota pipeline. When your water supply is polluted and you can't farm because of it, the exact reason why your water supply was contaminated is fucking irrelevant. That's a problem for the people who want the pipeline to worry about. The effects are the problem of the people affected.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday September 19 2016, @02:05PM
No, I have to disagree with you. If the cause of the leak is an external factor, then perhaps the problem is absolutely nothing to do with the construction or maintenance of the pipeline itself. For example, if an aircraft has crashed onto the pipeline then the problem is caused by the aircraft crash, not by the pipeline being unable to withstand such an event. So knowing 'why the pipeline failed in this particular spot', i.e. what has caused this problem, is one of the first things that we should be looking at. Start at the fault and work outwards.
Yes, pipelines do break 'all the time' but that doesn't mean every pipeline break should have been foreseen. That a single break can have such a catastrophic result for a fairly large region of the US is something for concern, but that might be an infrastructure failure rather than a pipeline design failure. Having two or more smaller pipelines going different routes might be a more resilient solution, but I bet it will not be a cheaper one, nor as profitable. As always, you get only as much as you are willing to pay for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @04:19PM
Pipelines are known to leak. Stop acting as if this is an isolated incident.
(many many leaks a year and these are just the reported ones)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pipeline_accidents_in_the_United_States_in_the_21st_century [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday September 19 2016, @04:53PM
And until you know why this particular pipeline leak has occurred - stop acting as if you know what has happened and why.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @08:10PM
> And until you know why this particular pipeline leak has occurred - stop acting as if you know what has happened and why.
The only WHY that matters is that the pipeline was there. Without a pipeline all those possible failure modes that could lead to the pipeline leaking would not have cause a leak.
Sure it matters to the pipeline engineers and their employers. But to the people who suffer the consequences none of that does - no pipeline, no leak no matter what.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:31AM
So your response appears to be that there shouldn't be any pipelines at all? I hope that you enjoy life without a car while living in your cave, with light provided by candles and cooking on your log fire. Sure, renewables might eventually be the answer - but we are a long way from replacing oil by alternative sources for a while yet. Can you provide a more economic way of transporting that amount of fuel over the distances concerned?
So none of those suffering the consequences of the leak are in the least bit concerned with the potential lack of fuel for their vehicles, for the power that is provided for everything that they use on a daily basis? Sure, they might have their own personal generators, but they do not power communications towers, television and radio broadcasting, hospitals, emergency services and so on.
So I contend that we should find the most economic and safe way of using the energy sources that we do have, while investing more heavily in research into alternative sources.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @04:56PM
Let's build more pipelines, so we can keep driving even when they fail!
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:11AM
Even in your aircraft crashing into pipeline scenario, there's the problem of not monitoring enough to notice and the problem of resistance to use the shut-off valve, which may be quite a way from the leak. That plane might have missed the pipeline, so why cut into profits by shutting sown the pipeline until reports of a spill come in and are verified.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Monday September 19 2016, @04:53PM
Agree, that is why the DAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline) must NOT be built, when it leaks it can leak directly into the Missouri river, poisoning the water supply of several regions.
Actually it crosses several bodies of water, per the United States Army Corps of Engineers [army.mil]:
I believe that we have allowed greed, a.k.a. “free markets”, to get away with too much already. We pay the costs of pollution and poisoned water, while the “people who create jobs” grab the benefits; and in the case of the DAPL, they are temporay jobs, which will not offset the damage of leaks on the water supply.
Please do see the talk by Aaron Huey [ted.com], it is very informative of the way the Sioux have been betrayed by the U.S. Government time after time.
For a primer on the DAPL and the situation there, see here [heavy.com]
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Monday September 19 2016, @08:30PM
...the Sioux...
Heh heh, I'm Blackfoot, so I already know the score.
However, I do kindly thank you for the info, and I find your words and attitude refreshing and delightful. Seriously. :-)
(Score: 1) by jelizondo on Monday September 19 2016, @10:32PM
Thank you for your kind words.
Cheers