Professor: Canada-Houston pipeline has higher risks

TransCanada “unrealistic”

Jay Blazek Crossley, Jul 12, 11.

Environmental impact estimates from TransCanada on their proposed Keystone XL Pipeline to carry tar sands crude oil from Canada to Houston, where it would be refined, underestimate the risks and costs of spills, according to a new study that is disputed by the company, as reported by the New York Times:

At a news conference on Monday hosted by the group Friends of the Earth, John S. Stansbury, a professor of environmental and water engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said he anticipated that the pipeline would experience 91 spills producing leaks of more than 50 barrels of oil during its first 50 years of operation. TransCanada, by contrast, predicts only 11 spills of that size or larger, according to Dr. Stansbury’s analysis of its regulatory filings.

Dr. Stansbury also concluded that it would take 10 times longer to shut down the pipeline when a leak developed than TransCanada estimated, that the company’s systems for electronically sensing spills were not as reliable as it claimed and that a worst-case spill would release about six times more oil than the company anticipated.

Houston Mayor Annise Parker previously sent a letter (pdf) to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking the State Department to conduct more extensive review of the potential risks of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline, according to the Sierra Club.

An Exxon Mobil pipeline running in the Yellowstone River recently failed, spilling an estimated 1,000 barrels of crude oil into the river in Montana, according to Helenair.com, while protestors have been dancing and chanting at the Montana Governor’s office in opposition to the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline, according to Helenair.com, that also posted the following video: