Keystone Pipeline Shut Down After 22nd Spill

The corporate stated it had shut down the pipeline after oil spilled right into a creek close to a Kansas city of about 1,000 folks.

Local weather campaigners on Thursday had been outraged however unsurprised as TC Vitality in Canada — the corporate behind the Keystone XL pipeline proposal defeated final 12 months — introduced the twenty second spill from its authentic pipeline.

The corporate said it had shut down the Keystone pipeline, which carries 622,000 barrels per day of crude oil, at about 8:00 pm after oil spilled right into a creek close to Washington, Kansas, a city of about 1,000 folks.

The spill happened about 20 miles south of a junction the place the pipeline splits, with one section carrying crude oil from tar sands in Canada to Illinois and one other carrying it to the Gulf Coast.

Earlier Keystone spills have despatched greater than 383,000 gallons of crude oil into rural wetlands in North Dakota and greater than 200,000 gallons right into a pasture in South Dakota.

It was not but identified, as of this writing, how giant the leak was or what injury had been completed by the point the corporate shut down the pipeline.

Jane Kleeb, founding father of progressive grassroots group Daring Nebraska, said the spill provides simply the most recent proof that “stronger legal guidelines” are wanted to cease corporations like TC Vitality from transporting harmful chemical substances and crude oil throughout the nation, typically placing tribal areas, waterways, and wildlife habitats in danger.

“As we wait to listen to how a lot tar sands and poisonous chemical substances like benzene have polluted our water from TC Vitality’s Keystone 1 pipeline, it’s crucial to notice our state and counties want higher legal guidelines on the books for pipelines,” stated Kleeb. “Fortunately, landowners and tribal nations got here collectively to cease the bigger Keystone XL pipeline from slicing by means of delicate areas of the Ogallala Aquifer and the Niobrara River.”

Jamie Henn, director of Fossil Free Media, advised the leak — like more than 8,000 different hazardous pipeline accidents which have taken place since 1986, leading to greater than 500 deaths — is exactly the type of catastrophe campaigners have been warning about for years as they’ve pushed to close down plans to construct the Keystone XL pipeline, the Mountain Valley pipeline, and different tasks.

“Pipelines leak,” said Henn. “Particularly ones named Keystone.”