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Kinder Morgan pipeline leak reaches 300,000 gallons in South Carolina

Posted: April 30, 2015 - 1:53pm | Updated: May 1, 2015 - 5:04pm

More than 300,000 gallons of gasoline have leaked from Texas-based energy company Kinder Morgan’s pipeline in Belton, S.C., since a structure failure in December, according to the Savannah Riverkeeper.

The spill was originally reported as 8,000 gallons, but was actually 8,000 barrels, Riverkeeper Tonya Bonitatibus said. There are 42 gallons per barrel.

The incident, located on Lewis Drive near the junction of West Calhoun Road in Belton, was reported Dec. 8 and was the result of a sleeve failure in the 27-inch pipeline, said Jim Beasley, spokesman for the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.

Kinder Morgan spokeswoman Melissa Ruiz said in an email Thursday the pipeline sleeve that failed was installed in 1979 and has been repaired.

“We are now inspecting other sleeves along the system that were installed during the same time period,” Ruiz wrote.

News of the leak came as Kinder Morgan plans a new, 360-mile petroleum pipeline from Belton to Jacksonville, Fla. Its proposed Palmetto Pipeline would move refined petroleum products from Baton Rouge, La., Collins and Pascagoula, Miss., and Belton, S.C. to North Augusta, S.C., Savannah and Jacksonville, Fla.

The Belton incident comes at a particularly sensitive time, as Kinder Morgan faces protests from Georgia residents who object to the possible seizure of private land.

The Savannah Riverkeeper, which learned of the leak earlier this year, is a founding organization of Push Back the Pipeline, which is comprised of concerned citizens, landowners, organizations and other groups who oppose the Palmetto Project.

“The discovery of such a high-volume spill is completely in contrast with Kinder Morgan’s repeated statements regarding their spill detection monitors,” said Savannah Riverkeeper Tonya Bonitatibus on Thursday.

“It has been five months since the leak was reported. The claim that this company can immediately detect and promptly clean up a spill has been shown in this instance to be false.”

Belton is a city of about 4,400 people in Anderson County, which is in the northwestern corner of South Carolina.

To date, 176,901 gallons of product have been recovered and removed, and 2,832 tons of soil have been removed and treated off-site.

“Contamination from the spill did impact an unnamed tributary to Brown’s Creek, but no violations of surface water standards have been recorded since January,” Beasley said on Thursday.

“A recovery trench and recovery wells are in place to address the contamination at the tributary in addition to absorbent and impermeable booms that are set up in the tributary itself as a backup measure,” he said.

Beasley said the area has about 71 groundwater monitoring wells and 20 recovery sumps, 15 recovery wells and two recovery trenches in place for environmental remediation.

He said officials are conducting daily ambient air monitoring and soil vapor monitoring as protective measures.

As for how much gasoline still need to be removed, Beasley said the total amount of the spill isn’t known. Regulators have determined that the Plantation Pipeline, for which Kinder Morgan is a majority owner, is responsible for the spill and is paying for the cleanup, even as DHEC oversees the activities.

Ruiz said the company is working with the South Carolina environmental control agency and is “following all established standards and protocols required to properly remediate the site.”

That type of remediation work is typically long term, Ruiz wrote, and Kinder Morgan is working under the direction of the state environmental agency, which “reviews and approves our work plans, monitors our progress and determines when the work is complete.”

This story was updated to correct an error. The spill was originally reported as 8,000 gallons, not 800 as previously stated.