Thursday, May 26, 2011
Oil companies + business friendly courts + eminent domain = land rights trampled
Corporate pipeline operators have more rights and the final say over property they covet than the families who own the farms or the American Indians who hunted it for eons, and this will soon be demonstrated again for those who do not believe it.
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fringe -
ReplyDeleteLast year a pipe broke at a pumping station near Cogswell, North Dakota, along the first leg of the Keystone pipeline system.
The breach released some 500 barrels of Canadian heavy crude inside the facility and set off a geyser of oil that reached above the treetops in a nearby field.
That was just ten months since the pipeline began transporting bitumen from Alberta's oil sands mines to refineries in Patoka, Illinois.
A recent study by the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups said that because tar-sands pipelines carry a highly corrosive and acidic mix of diluted bitumen and volatile natural gas liquid condensate, they raise the risk of spills. The study found that internal corrosion has caused more than 16 times as many spills in the Alberta pipeline system than the US system because of bitumen.
The question is not if there will be more leaks. The question is when and how bad.
On April 29, the province of Alberta suffered its worst spill in 36 years when a pipeline broke in a remote area of boreal forest east of the Peace River, some 7.5 miles from the community of Little Buffalo in the traditional territory of the Lubicon Cree First Nation. It released 28,000 barrels along the pipeline's 30-meter right-of-way and in pools of stagnant water.
The Rainbow pipeline system — owned by Calgary-based Plains Midstream Canada, a subsidiary of Houston-based Plains All American Pipeline (PAA) —was built in 1965 and runs 480 miles from a pipeline in northwestern Alberta to the provincial capital of Edmonton. Oil is processed there US and Canadian markets. PAA is one of the largest oil and gas transportation firms in North America.
The company said the cause was human error — claiming that soil surrounding a section of the pipe wasn't properly compacted after it was excavated during a 2010 maintenance check, causing stress on the line. PAA now says 36% of the oil has been recovered. But the company reported clean-up work was halted May 11 after a distress call from a worker in the field. Additionally, the provincial government and PAA were accused of keeping the spill hushed up for days following the rupture. In 2006, there was a breach on the same line due to corrosion, spilling about 180 barrels.
I understand this sand is inexpensive to get since it's not terribly far below the surface. But the oil is expensive because heat is required to melt it off the sand. Now that they have it, it is expensive to refine.
ReplyDeleteAlready there is a pipeline bringing it to McPherson Kansas to a Farmland Co-op refinery. This oil is expensive to refine because it has all those nasties in it your information addressed. A new "cracking" unit had to be built along with dozens of gigantic tanks to deal with all this. The oil I have read produces far more waste products tars and nasty things than most oils. This pipeline currently runs from the Edmonton area near Chicago then connects to another and is pumped to Kansas.
Inspite of the expense, they are doing it so I guess it is still profitable. A shame carbon or pollution tax is not added to this, it could pay down the national debt if we are going to use it, or price it out of market which would be good to. It's a given McPherson will see increase in disease, cancer especially.
Interesting that I've never read about the tar sands oil being 16 times more likely to cause leaks and internal corrosion. Wonder why?
ReplyDeleteMore leaks in the future I guess, what a mess.