Andrew Breiner
While America Spars Over
Keystone XL,
A Vast Network Of
Pipelines Is Quietly
Being Approved
"While America Spars Over Keystone XL, A Vast Network Of Pipelines Is Quietly Being Approved"
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After countless marches, arrests, Congressional votes,
and editorials, the five-and-a-half year battle over the
controversial Keystone XL pipeline is nearing its end.
If a recent ruling in Nebraska doesn’t delay the
decision further, America could find out
as soon as this spring whether or not the pipeline,
which has become a focal point in America’s
environmental movement, will be built.
But while critics and proponents of Keystone
XL have sparred over the last few years, numerous
pipelines — many of them slated to carry the same
Canadian tar sands crude as Keystone — have been
proposed, permitted, and even seen construction
begin in the U.S. and Canada. Some rival Keystone
XL in size and capacity; others, when linked up
with existing and planned pipelines, would carry
more oil than the 1,179-mile pipeline.
With the public eye turned on Keystone, some
of these pipelines have faced little opposition.
But it’s not just new pipelines that worry Carl
Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline
Safety Trust. Weimer said companies are beginning
to revamp old pipelines by expanding their
capacity or reversing their flow, changes that
can be troubling if proper safety measures
aren’t put in place.
“Some of these pipelines have been in the ground
for 40, 50, 60 years, so they were put in the ground
before pipelines had the latest and greatest c
oatings or before the welding was up to snuff,”
he said. “So there’s lots of issues about how
you verify that the pipe that’s been in the ground
that long is really up to additional pressures.”
Weimer said that while Keystone has served as a
distraction from these other pipelines, it’s also
increased the public’s awareness of the dangers
of transporting tar sands crude. But post-Keystone
decision, he said, he’s not sure whether that
interest will wane, or whether activists will
pick right back up where they left off on
Keystone and tackle other pipeline proposals.
“It could go either way,” he said. “It could be
that people put so much energy into Keystone
that if it gets approved it might take the wind
out of everybody’s sails, and they’ll figure
‘what’s the point,’ or it might be that there’s a lot
more people that are interested and will continue
on with all these other ones.”
America will have to wait for the White House’s
decision on Keystone XL to find out. Meanwhile,
here are ten other pipelines — projects that haven’t
been waylayed by international approval
processes or political skirmishes —
you should know about.
Energy East
If CREDIT: TRANSCANADA
Energy East is approved, the pipeline would
carry about 1.1 million barrels of tar sands
crude each day — a huge capacity compared
to Keystone XL’s 830,000 barrels per day (bpd)
— from Saskatchewan and Alberta’s Athabasca
region to Canada’s East Coast. About two-thirds
of the pipeline already exists, meaning a major
part of the project will be converting that existing
line, which carries natural gas, into a crude oil
pipeline.
The pipeline has gotten some push-back in Canada,
however. A February report from the Pembina
Institutefound Energy East would have an even
greater impact on the climate than Keystone XL,
with the potential to generate 30 to 32 million
metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year —
the equivalent of adding more than seven million
cars to the roads, and more than the 22 million
metric tons that the think tank predicts Keystone XL
will produce. And a March report from multiple
Canadian environmental organizations argued
that the benefits of Energy East to Canadian oil
refineries had been overblown.
TransCanada filed its project description for
the pipeline with the National Energy Board
in early March, marking the first step in the
pipeline’s approval process.
Line 9 Reversal And Expansion
On March 6, Canada’s National Energy Board
approved Enbridge’s Line 9 expansion and
reversal plan, which will allow the currently
westward-flowing Line 9 pipeline to flow east,
enabling it to carry 300,000 barrels of tar sands
from Alberta to refineries in Quebec each day.
The NEB’s approval of the plan will hold only if
Enbridge meets 30 conditions laid out by the
NEB relating to emergency response, public
consultation and other safety issues.
Enbridge has one year to meet these conditions
and cannot begin the reversal operations until
the conditions are met and the pipeline is inspected.
Environmentalists have decried the NEB’s
decision to approve the project. “Enbridge’s
Line 9 pipeline project is a recipe for disaster,”
Adam Scott of Canada’s Environmental Defense
said. “The 39-year-old pipeline runs directly
through the most densely populated parts of
Canada, threatening the health, safety and
environment of Canadians.”
But it’s not just Canadians who are concerned
about the pipeline. The reversal means tar sands
will be travelling dangerously close to communities
in New England, and the pipeline will connect at
the end of its route to another pipeline that
could carry the crude to Portland, Maine.
Enbridge has denied that this is their plan,
saying they won’t ship Line 9’s tar sands past
the Canadian border, but New England
residents are still worried.
“Today’s decision should energize residents of
New England to stand up and say unequivocally:
We do not want tar sands in our communities
and we do not want to play any role in
encouraging the tar sands industry to continue
with its irresponsible and dangerous development,”
NRDC’s Canada Project Director Danielle Droitsch
wrote in a blog post on March 7.
Alberta Clipper Expansion
CREDIT: ENBRIDGE
Enbridge is already in the process of increasing
the capacity of the existing Alberta Clipper
pipeline from 450,000 to 570,000 barrels
per day by installing new pumps and metering
terminals along the route. Ultimately, the
company seeks to increase the pipeline’s
capacity to 880,000 bpd — more than the
capacity of Keystone XL — but approval for
that is still in the works. The existing pipeline
carries tar sands crude from Hardisty, Alberta
to Superior, Wisconsin, and was shut down
last month after a leak at a Saskatchewan pump
station spilled about 125 barrels of oil.
The expansion project has faced some opposition.
In January, the Sierra Club called on the State
Department to consider the cumulative effects
of the Alberta Clipper expansion in its review
of the Keystone XL pipeline — but overall, Alberta Clipper hasn’t gotten the attention Keystone XL has.
“We’re very concerned this has flown under
the public’s radar,” Peter LaFontaine, an energy
policy advocate for the National Wildlife Federation
told Bloomberg News in May. “The public
doesn’t seem to have the same sort of attention
for pipeline expansions as they do for pipeline
construction. But we’re talking about a lot of crude.”
The State Department announced on February 14
that the permitting process for the Alberta Clipper
expansion would be delayed beyond the anticipated
mid-2014 decision.
CREDIT: ANDREW BREINER
White Cliffs Twin Pipeline
On March 17, commissioners in Adams County,
Colorado approved the construction of the
White Cliffs Twin Pipeline, which will carry
crude oil 527 miles from Platteville,
Colorado to Cushing, Oklahoma. The pipeline
will run along an existing pipeline, a twinning
effort that will give the two pipelines a total
capacity of about 150,000 bpd.
According to the Denver Post, most of the
Adams County residents who showed up to
the pipeline’s public hearing supported the project
— all except one, who said the approval of
the pipeline meant the county’s residents
were “selling ourselves down the wrong road.”
Northern Gateway
If the $7.9-billion Northern Gateway pipeline
project is approved, two pipelines will be built
stretching about 730 miles from Bruderheim,
Alberta to Kitimat, British Columbia. One pipeline
will transport approximately 525,000 barrels of tar
sands bitumen each day from Alberta to B.C. for
export to Asian markets, while the other would
carry around 193,000 barrels per day of condensate,
the mix of liquid hydrocarbons that’s used to dilute
heavy tar sands so it can be transported,
back to Alberta.
CREDIT: ENBRIDGE, WWW.GATEWAYFACTS.CA
In December, a Canadian review panel
recommended that the Northern Gateway
pipeline project be given the go-ahead by the
federal government as long as 209 conditions
are met (none of which address climate change
or carbon pollution). The project has run into
serious opposition, however, with the country’s
First Nations tribes growing particularly vocal.
One spokesman recently vowed that the groups
will maintain a “wall of opposition” against the
project. About 130 First Nations have signed
on to the Save the Fraser declaration, which
aims to ban all tar sands pipelines from First Nations
territory and from the ocean migration routes
of the Fraser River salmon. The Canadian federal
cabinet is expected to make its final decision
on Northern Gateway by July.
Trans Mountain Expansion Project
CREDIT: CANADA NATIONAL ENERGY BOARD
Kinder Morgan filed a proposal for an expansion
of its Trans Mountain Pipeline system in
December 2013, seeking to build another
pipeline to carry Canadian tar sands from
Edmonton, Alberta to the West Coast of Canada,
near Vancouver. If approved, the pipeline would
increase the capacity of the Trans Mountain
pipeline system from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels
per day.
Like the Northern Gateway, the pipeline
has sparked substantial opposition in Canada,
especially on the West Coast. The city of
Vancouver has filed for intervenor status against
the pipeline, which would allow it to make
submissions to Canada’s National Energy Board
and take an active role in the hearings on the
pipeline. Native tribes in Washington and
British Columbia have also announced
their intent to oppose the Trans Mountain project
as intervenors, citing their worries about the major
environmental impacts the pipeline would have,
especially the uptick of oil tankers in their tribal
waters.
Eastern Gulf
If approved, the Eastern Gulf Crude Access pipeline
would carry oil from the Bakken region and Alberta’s
tar sands from Patoka, Illinois about 770 miles to Boyce,
Louisiana. Like many other pipeline projects, the Eastern
Gulf Crude Access is part construction, part restructuring —
the proposal would re-purpose 574 miles of existing
natural gas pipeline to carry oil, and construct 40 miles
of new pipeline at the beginning of the line’s route,
from Patoka to Johnsonville, Illinois.The companies
in charge of the project — Enbridge and Energy Transfer
Partners of Dallas, Texas — originally wanted it to
go to St. James, Louisiana, but didn’t gain enough
customer support to build that leg of the pipeline.
Sandpiper Pipeline
Enbridge’s Sandpiper pipeline would carry
Bakken crude oil about 610 miles from Tioga,
North Dakota to Superior, Wisconsin. North Dakota
officials have heralded the pipeline, which is the largest in
development in the state.
CREDIT: ENBRIDGE
“This is going to add that additional pipeline capacity
that we need going forward,” Justin Kringstad of
North Dakota Pipeline Authority told KUMV-TV.
“As we continue to rise our production levels we
need that adequate means of transportation
to move that crude to markets around the U.S.”
But Sandpiper still needs state and federal approval,
and the pipeline has drawn opposition from some
students and native tribes. Farmers and property owners
along the pipeline route have also voiced their concerns with the pipeline.
“We limed and put manure on that this spring, and then
we find out in July that’s exactly where they want to
put a pipeline,” organic farmer Janaki Fisher-Merritt
told MPR News in October. “If they go through there it just
increases our risk too much, we won’t grow vegetables on it.”
If approved, construction on the pipeline is slated to start
in December 2014, and officials hope the pipeline is in service by 2016
Flanagan South
CREDIT: ENBRIDGE
CREDIT: ENBRIDGE
Flanagan South, an Enbridge project, is already in
the works, and once constructed will carry tar sands
and Bakken crude 589 miles from Flanagan, Illinois
to Cushing, Oklahoma. The pipeline, which workers
began constructing last fall, will run alongside the
existing Spearhead Pipeline, which carries about
173,000 barrels of Canadian oil each day. Flanagan’s
initial capacity will be 600,000 barrels of oil from
Canada, North Dakota and Montana per day —
by comparison, Keystone XL will be 1,179 miles
in its entirety and have a capacity of 830,000 barrels per day.
The pipeline was approved by the Army Corps of
Engineers using a permit called NWP 12, a tactic
that has resulted in lawsuits from the Sierra Club,
who say it allows the Corps to “piecemeal” the
pipeline project into separate water crossings, making
it easier to approve. Doug Hayes, staff attorney for the
Sierra Club, said he thinks the NWP 12 process doesn’t
provide citizens along the pipeline route adequate
opportunity to voice their opinions on the pipeline,
resulting in a dearth of public knowledge about Flanagan South.
“When we were talking to people along the pipeline route,
many of them were surprised and shocked to learn that
there was this major tar sands pipeline being approved
without any public involvement whatsoever in their
backyards,” Hayes said. “So no, there was not adequate public
awareness of this. There still isn’t.”
Line 3 Replacement
CREDIT: ENBRIDGE
Enbridge plans to replace a major pipeline running
from Edmonton, Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin, an
update that would nearly double the size of the existing
pipeline. The existing pipeline has ruptured multiple times
over its 46-year lifespan, and the update would replace
the aging pipes with new steel and coating.
Enbridge says it can complete the update without
getting a State Department permit, even though the
project crosses a national boundary, but
environmentalists have taken issue with that claim.
“Like with their proposed Alberta Clipper pipeline
expansion, Enbridge will need a new presidential permit
for the project,” Sierra Club staff attorney Doug Hayes
said in a statement. “And the same climate test that the president
set for the Keystone XL pipeline will apply.”
The project is the largest in Enbridge’s history and replacing
the 1,031 miles of pipeline is projected to cost the company $7 billion.
Andrew Breiner contributed the ThinkProgress graphics for this piece.
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