(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Keystone Pipeline leak of nearly 600,000 gallons of crude oil faces difficult cleanup [1]
['Daily Kos Staff', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']
Date: 2022-12-14
x This is what 600,000 gallons of tarsands and toxic chemicals like benzene looks like. The black area is not a shadow, that’s tarsands that then spills into water. The number will go⬆️ It will take years + millions to clean up. We need stronger laws. Also, thx @POTUS for #NoKXL. pic.twitter.com/TEXL5ZD28t — Jane “Go Vote” Kleeb (@janekleeb) December 10, 2022
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, which sent out coordinators last Thursday, the leak had been contained, and no drinking water was affected. Now, hundreds of workers will begin the arduous task of attempting to clean up a pollutant nearly impossible to fully eradicate. As Kansas City NPR affiliate KCUR reports, the tricky part of remediating this spill comes from the consistency of the Keystone pipeline’s unique crude oil itself, which tends to sink to the bottom of any water it spills into.
A report from the EPA on freshwater and onshore oil spills lays bare the complications cleanup entails, with the guide ultimately concluding that it’s better to prevent spills from happening in the first place. According to the EPA, “cleanup of an oil spill is not considered complete until all waste materials are disposed of properly.” Reports examining a myriad of spills suggest they are never fully “cleaned up,” depending on location.
The EPA presently believes just the surface water of Mill Creek has been affected. According to a recent update on the situation, “approximately 317 personnel are on-scene from EPA, TC Energy, and other state and local agencies. Response crews have recovered 2,163 barrels of oil-water mixture from Mill Creek, with 435 barrels of oil recovered directly from the ruptured pipeline. That’s a total of 2,598 barrels recovered from the scene.” The EPA’s Kellen Ashford labeled the cleanup process as “ongoing” and confirmed that no timeline had been set for immediate or short-term cleanup and remediation actions.
On Wednesday, the Kansas City Star published an editorial calling for restitution. Accountability and prioritizing the communities impacted by the spill are key and far more important than arguments of keeping oil flowing for the alleged sake of gas prices, the editorial board notes: “The oil spill is a major disaster. Local, state and federal officials—and the company—must stop the leak, fix the pipe, pay for the damage, and make sure it can’t happen again before turning the pumps back on.” I’d argue the risk is too great for continued operation and that anything but sunsetting this pipeline is a short-sighted decision that would only serve to prop up TC Energy and a fuel we must move away from.
This is precisely why Native American tribes and Indigenous communities as well as a coalition of environmental groups protested against the Keystone XL pipeline, which would’ve added to a pipeline system that already spans two countries, running from Alberta, Canada to Texas. The Biden administration announced that it had revoked an essential permit needed for its operation last year, effectively ending a more than decade-long struggle to stop the pipeline from being constructed.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/14/2141519/-The-Keystone-Pipeline-leakiest-in-the-country-just-dumped-600-000-gallons-of-crude-oil-into-Kansas
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
