SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Keystone Pipeline leaks 210,000 gallons of oil in South Dakota
Keystone Pipeline leaks 210,000 gallons of oil in South Dakota
"A total of 210,000 gallons of oil leaked Thursday (Nov 16, 2017) from the Keystone Pipeline in South Dakota, the pipeline's operator, TransCanada, said.
Crews shut down the pipeline Thursday morning, and officials are investigating the cause of the leak, which occurred about three miles southeast of the town of Amherst, said Brian Walsh, a spokesman for the state's Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
This is the largest Keystone oil spill to date in South Dakota, Walsh said. The leak comes just days before Nebraska officials announce a decision on whether the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline, a sister project, can move forward."
Keystone pipeline - major leak/spill
Elsewhere there are notes of smaller spills in the same pipeline--this AC submitter is wondering about the long term use of a pipeline that is leaking when it's nearly brand new. Doesn't sound good for the long term.
PBS has a followup article from today (Saturday), 'We need to know' more about Keystone oil pipeline leak, tribal chairman says
The leak comes as the debate over the proposed path of the Keystone XL pipeline rages on. Nebraska's Public Service Commission is scheduled to announce its decision Monday on whether to permit TransCanada to build Keystone XL along its proposed route in the state, the Omaha World-Herald reported. A spokeswoman for the commission told the AP that the board's members will only use information provided during public hearings and official public comments in order to make their decision.
Related:
US District Court: Approval of Dakota Access Pipeline Violated the Law
Dakota Access Pipeline Suffers Oil Leak Even Before Becoming Operational
Company Behind Dakota Access Oil Pipeline Sues Greenpeace
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Sunday November 19 2017, @05:52AM (23 children)
Surely you don't mean that somebody from tribal lands would sabotage it? If so, that's so incredibly and offensively full-retard. I guess they're just kiiiiding about all that belonging to the land, harmony with nature crap, and decided to fuck up their own backyard? Is that what you mean by that?
Secondly, bad welding would be EXACTLY the reason why the whole thing should be shutdown, executives fined *and* jailed, the whole company forfeited, and the entirety set aside for the tribe and cleanup operations. I say that, because when the industry claims opponents (such as myself) are just ignorant hicks, they trot out the impressive Star Trek science and shame us like cave living idiots. Stuff like MRI/CAT pigs being sent down the pipes, extensive QC on the pipes, INSPECTED FUCKING WELDS on the pipes, and a few other genuinely advanced scientific diagnostics would be in use.
They always make it sound like they've got NORAD going on in their operations center, and it's a NASA level competency infrastructure in play. Yet, it's not, IS IT? Nope, they're fucking off, shaving off costs, not using the scientific equipment, because if they fucking did, how did bad welding occur? Just what fucking welders did they hire? The CHEAP ones with poor experience and little certifications? I bet some professional welders could educate you here about how a bad weld job is so, so, so, so, much fucking worse than an accidental puncture. Like the difference between a gentle hill and Mt. Fucking Everest.
Uh huh. I told you so, I told you so, I told you so, ♪♫♬ ♪♫♬ I Told You So♪♫♬♪♫♬♪
:D
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 19 2017, @06:35AM (13 children)
There are lots of potential reasons for punctures other than sabotage. Accidents happen.
Bear in mind, this is equally true whether your contention is that a few spills is no big deal, or whether your contention is that a few spills are reason enough to shut all the everything down.
Of course, while we're about it, we should probably also do a comparison with the risks and costs of other forms of shipping, like rail - or just simply stop all the oil all the time (although given that we're shutting down nukes, odds are we're going to see plenty more oil and coal before the solar systems save us).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Sunday November 19 2017, @07:04AM (4 children)
Accidents can be meticulously and thoroughly prepared for so that the consequences are mitigated as much as possible. When the consequences are really, seriously, tremendously fucking bad for us, we need to ask ourselves is it worth it? When we do that, we need to completely ignore the oil executives and investors that blindly say yes cuz the billions.
No, I don't have a problem with pipelines. As long as they're made safe, as long as their continually inspected, and as long as their maintained with government oversight. That little spill months back was at a pumping station that can handle it. The real catastrophe is when something happens in the middle of the piping in between pumping stations. You need irises and valves that can isolate that part of the line immediately so the whole volume of the pipe can't flow out. Ohhh, and it goes without saying, not violating any of our treaties. So the DAPL line is instantly disqualified, and the investors and everyone else can go fuck themselves. It's sovereign land, and it ain't ours. Fuck off.
You can also have a ditch below the pipe to at least divert the oil, and it can be made with dual pipes (one within another). If they actually used all the scientific instruments the way they could be, that would mean regular inspections of the line from within the pipe itself. As I stated before, the little trivial leak at the pumping station was no big deal, and a thousand gallons lost in an accident is capable of being handled. It's when you lose 210,000 fucking gallons into nature, or waterways, that it becomes an issue worth putting people in jail for and you might want to just shut the whole line down. It should've never happened if they were behaving, and if they were behaving and a major accident happened, then I'll agree it's an act of God and we can learn and move forward. Although, again, I'm not sure we're really weighing the risks to nature appropriately here.
It's not a technical issue why the lines shouldn't be allowed, it's a humanity issue. Specifically, that the oil executives and investors have none of it, and I think this is possible proof of that. At the very least I expect an investigation into the cause, and if negligence is found, then people need to "hang".
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday November 19 2017, @08:08AM (3 children)
It's funny how the executives never find their own water supply or property threatened by a pipeline. I have to wonder how much more safety they would demand if they faced the danger.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday November 19 2017, @06:00PM (1 child)
Well, before the current route it was going to be routed through an area inconvenient for some city (forget which city and inconvenient in what way). That was the route the engineers thought best. It got rerouted through Indian lands. Possibly because the land would have been too expensive, but I don't think I ever knew exactly why.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:28AM
You lie!
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 20 2017, @02:13AM
How would you know?
Let's also suppose that this pipeline is as threatening to water supplies as you think it is. Where should we route pipelines when we have the choice? High population density areas or low population density areas? Which areas are likely to generate higher risk?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fritsd on Sunday November 19 2017, @11:16AM (7 children)
Well, that's what I thought (nobody listens to me boohoo): why not ship the bitumen by rail from Canada to Texas? It sounds like it's just chunks of dirty asphalt, after all. No need to make it liquid and spillable first.
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday November 20 2017, @05:37AM (5 children)
They have to dilute it and pipe it to the rail head as far as I know.
The real question, which is safer, the odd big bitumen pipeline leak, perhaps in an out of the way spot where the leak isn't noticed or more train accidents that release small amounts of bitumen beside the railroad and are noticed quick.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Monday November 20 2017, @05:59AM (4 children)
No, any significant leak in a pipeline will be noticed right away. It is the tank cars that are dangerous and unpredictable. The size of the Keystone pipeline leak is only about 8 tank cars worth. It doesn't take much to have eight cars derail and spill their contents all around and there is a much greater chance of that bursting into flames somehow when hastily moving train cars smash, bash, bend, split and spill. Sometimes it takes hours for a full response to a train accident in a remote area. A pipeline will be shut down and isolated quickly, though at the pressures and flow rates in that size of pipe with a large rupture some is still going to spill. They do actually consider all this, contrary to what you may think, and try to make it as unlikely as possible and any potential impact from any problems as small and easy to deal with as possible.
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday November 20 2017, @07:05AM
I'll be the first to say I don't know the numbers, but I'm pretty sure that multiple times I've heard about pipeline spills not being noticed for much too long. My google-fu is failing me but there is this from the wiki,
unluckily the original page won't load for me.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fritsd on Monday November 20 2017, @04:54PM (2 children)
We're not talking about an ethylene or chlorine train derailing here; we're talking about a freight train with this type [wikipedia.org] of wagons filled with smelly rocks.
In case of spill, bring people with shovels.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Tuesday November 21 2017, @12:07AM (1 child)
Whaaaaa?.... Huh??!
We're talking about moving crude oil not some kind of ore...
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Tuesday November 21 2017, @04:38PM
It could well be that I'm confused; in that case, I'm sorry for the misinformation.
I thought that Canadian crude oil came from here:
Athabasca oil sands [wikipedia.org]
Where "oil sands" actually means: some kind of ore, if I understand the Wiki page correctly. I mean: they don't normally use open pit mining methods for crude oil, amirite?
picture [bloomberg.com]
So.
When (not if) the post-Peak Oil Athabasca bitumen is no longer profitable, they can use the 3456 km pipeline to export maple syrup to the south, or maybe coca-cola to the north :-)
(from the Bloomberg article:)
(The Bloomberg article from December 2014 has a handy graph that made me laugh: crude bitumen production from January 2010 to December 2019)
(Score: 2) by drussell on Tuesday November 21 2017, @10:23AM
You don't ship the ore from a gold mine to somewhere else to have the gold extracted, that would be silly. You always do at least the first stage of separation right close to where you mine.
The same goes for oil. When you mine the raw ore, you process it into at least a reasonably well separated product to ship out and put the remaining sand, rocks and debris that are not hydrocarbons back where you mined it from.
Shipping out raw ores or bitumen contaminated with all kinds of other junk would be kind of insane and obviously not cost effective... :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 19 2017, @10:19AM (1 child)
...you dilute your honesty too much. ;)
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday November 23 2017, @02:24AM
So true! Even Fake News CNN said it's only 5,000 barrels.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 20 2017, @02:07PM (6 children)
Why is that necessarily retarded to suppose that the tribe would sabotage the pipeline to score political points or get money? They tried that tactic before when there was an "OMG!!!" spill of, what, 50,000 gallons that when you looked at it was about the size of a half lot next to a gas station. And that was supposed to be the absolute proof that pipelines are dangerous and will destroy all life on Earth as we know it.
Further, all that "belonging to the land, harmony with nature crap" is crap. It's designed for white liberal consumption. Actually go to a reservation and observe how well they belong to the land and live in harmony with nature. Any Indian property, from the Blackfeet in North Central Montana, to the Crow Agency in South Eastern Montana/NE Wyoming/NW South Dakota, to the Navajo in AZ, etc. etc. and there will be minimum 3 junk cars and crap piled to the heavens without one thought for aesthetics or nature spirits. If they are so careless with their own personal property that they own, how can we believe they treasure the rest of the land?
Archaeological evidence of what Indians did before European contact is not particularly complimentary either. It's not conclusive, but there was a mass die-off of major fauna in the Americas around the time humans are reckoned to have arrived. Over-hunting, perhaps? We further know that around the time of the earliest European contact in what is now the United States the Iroquois had so persecuted the Algonquin peoples to their east and depopulated their lands that the ones who were left under King Phillip ran into the arms of the Pilgrims hoping for new allies to help them turn the tide. In other words, systematic warfare and ethnic cleansing had already been long practiced in the Americas. No innocents, they.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 20 2017, @03:27PM
you seem to have a dim view of the natives. they arent allowed to be on the land they were forcibly moved from under the threat of death and now the white people want to poison the shitty land they were given due to the white people's liberal consumption taking precedence for the good land.
there's no pleasing people like you if someone objects to your conveniences
you take examples of object poverty enforced upon them as reasons to keep them poor. nice logic
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 20 2017, @05:13PM
Have you been playing the long con? Now your narrative switches to a more conservative pro-business one after years building up social credit? It sure would be a good tactic to try and sway those that give your words consideration.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday November 20 2017, @10:26PM (3 children)
Yes. That level of self harm is extreme. Literally cutting off your nose to spite your face. So I don't believe it, unless it was one random pissed off guy that is NOT a tribe member. An organized sabotage because they protest DAPL, because it might fail? No, that is not all that credible to begin with. Certainly not because some natives had derelict cars in their front yards.
That makes no sense dude. No, I'm not saying that I have the delusion that the natives were perfect, or are perfect. They are, however, the ones consistently speaking on behalf of nature. You're correct, I don't know if right after the loving nature speech some natives go back to their properties filled with pollution and garbage. For the record, having a few derelict cars in your front yard can also be attributed to the redneck stereotype. "If you cut your lawn, and find three vehicles.... you might be a redneck".
Oh, by the way, in the end none of it matters. We had a treaty, it was signed, it IS sovereign land. Just because our government isn't representative of us any longer, or gives a shit about the environment, does it mean that it's okay to throw away our national honor.
So no, I don't believe Frojack's implications that members of the tribe might have sabotaged it. That would be like me sabotaging the sewage lines near my place so I can enjoy the fetid wastewater in my own home. Just to spite the landlord. Unless there is evidence of sabotage, negligence and mechanical failure are the most likely culprits. It's just offensive to make that claim without any proof at all to back it up, beyond some stereotypes and derelict cars.
Simply because I don't think normal people will shit in their own backyard, to complain to others about the shit in their own backyard, or blame strangers for it. These are the words and actions of more than on native as well. I doubt that the tribe itself would sanction any action that might release tar sands into the same environment they need to live in.
Okay. Twenty-five 2k gallon containers might fit on half a lot, but that much seeping into nature and the waterways is still bad. This leak is over four times as bad, so let's just say an entire lot and the gas station peppered with 2,000 gallon containers.
Spilling onto the surface of the ground might not seem so bad at first, but this shit ain't biodegradable like a banana peel you know. Nature will start to distribute that in ground water, and just rains on the surface transporting the pollution into a larger area.
What if that spill was IN the waterways? You think 50,000 gallons is innocent? This is tar sands too, that amount of it, WILL have a negative impact on nature. You seem to want to downplay that as if it's not that big a deal. IT IS.
The accidents I'm not concerned about are the pumping station accidents that can easily mitigate a thousand gallons or so because of a leak at the station. In the middle of the line is a whole different story. Straight into nature, and not into a concrete retaining area around the pump. No biggie, and not really even news. What we are talking about is so much worse, because it was a failed weld in a system they promised would be free of such things. With all the advanced tech available on market, there is absolutely zero excuse for a failed weld beyond negligence of some kind. This wasn't a weld in a fence where failure isn't catastrophic, but similar to a critical weld failing on a space station.
Regardless of the tribe, they failed.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Tuesday November 21 2017, @12:19AM (2 children)
I don't understand what you're saying here... We're talking about the transportation of crude oil. I fail to see what the origin of that crude has to do with your argument. I'm not saying we should go around randomly spilling any mix of hydrocarbons around into nature willy-nilly, but implying it is somehow worse because it is from the oilsands is silly.
The crude we're talking about was extracted from bitumen, which in some places is so abundant that is is right on the surface. Gooey black oily sand to essentially natural asphalt pavement. The natives in the area used to caulk their canoes and such with it... In some places it oozes right out of the ground into puddles! How is it so horrible if a little bit of it ends up on the ground somewhere else temporarily until they clean it up? There are literally thousands of square miles of it in Northern Alberta... It is just sitting there in the ground. You dig it up, slurp out the oily goo and return the nicely cleaned sand and earth back to the forest. I would think the trees and the woodland critters probably like the after-soil better than the before-soil when it comes to the oilsands people slurping the black goo out....
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday November 21 2017, @12:39AM (1 child)
Not at all silly. It's what the experts say. No, HuffPost isn't an expert, but this does a decent job of explaining it the difference between tar sands and regular oil. Having physically seen both, yeah, there is a pretty big difference. Regular oil is a lot more easier and safer to transport, in particular because tar sands actually contain sand. It's fucking abrasive as hell to the pipes. At least more so than regular oil, making tar sands pipelines inherently more dangerous. Yet, I'm still not against it if the proper measures are taken, and triple that at waterway crossings or anyplace it traverses groundwater too close to the surface.
Yeah, it's Greenpeace, but it's a good explanation [greenpeace.org]...
So, absolutely yes, it's worse. Not somehow worse, but worse in known and quantified ways.
I can see your point about land, but you need to remember that it has been modified. That shit don't flow through a pipe, unless you make enough into a liquid to flow under pressure. So when the pipe breaks, it isn't natural bitumen finding a new place in nature with human assisted migration. It's what bitumen becomes after the process to prep it for shipping via pipeline.
The part that is really horrible is when this modified shit gets into a waterway, or seeps into ground water. I'm betting your average Canadian doesn't drink well water that is really close to these bitumen fields. In this modified state it has the potential, and has already happened, to cause vastly increased (200x) levels of carcinogens in the water supply.
Moreover, why do we need to ship this shit thousands of miles again? Canada isn't land locked or some shit. They could make it traverse their entire country to the Atlantic, or even better, perform the refining locally. After processing into regular product they could ship that far more safely.
Only reason why we are taking the risks are the monetary rewards for the few.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Tuesday November 21 2017, @10:48AM
That mostly applies to stuff moving around right near the mines, getting it to the upgrader, etc. You do realize we don't ship the actual sandy goo over long distances, right? That isn't what spilled out of the Keystone Pipeline. It only has any significant sand and crap in it at the first stages of production. The goo is extracted and via various different possible processes is turned into what is called "synthetic crude" so it is still "heavy" in oil parlance, but it isn't like asphalt anymore...
Yeah, but that isn't what spilled! That applies mostly to the original goo that is processed here in Alberta, not the synthetic crude we ship out for further processing and refining. Sure, it has some nasty hydrocarbon fractions in it but so does other crude. As long as you keep it out of waterways and clean up anything else that ends up back on the ground it's not nearly as nasty as the zealots would have you believe.
Crude of any type has all sorts of nasties in it. Cracking some long hydrocarbon chains or adding a bunch of lighter ones doesn't in and of itself make it any worse than some of the random blends that come out of some traditional wells. That's why we no longer dump any of them it into streams and rivers (like the early refiners in the US did with the "waste" gasoline, for example) and clean it up if it ends up in the soil. I'd be much more worried about the consequences of fracking mixing everything up in the geology than extracting some of the goo from the oilsands.
Yes, we could sell it abroad, however, it makes far more sense to send it safely through a pipe to the US for use instead of the US importing oil from abroad too. Shipping large quantities of crude by sea is really one of the worst ideas, IMHO.
So, you don't ever use any oil or oil-related products? Kudos!