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State Department announces it will do Supplemental EIS on Keystone XL tar sands pipeline
By Liz Barratt-Brown, NRDC
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Today, the State Department announced that it will “request public comment on a Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline in mid-April and that the State Department expects to make a decision on whether to grant or deny the permit before the end of 2011.”
We welcome the fact that the State Department has agreed to do an SEIS, as requested by EPA, many members of Congress and the public. An SEIS provides the agencies, public officials and the public more generally a chance to review critical issues that were either only briefly mentioned in the earlier draft or were not mentioned at all. A year later, it also gives agencies and others the chance to weigh in on key issues – what is case for this pipeline? How will the pipeline affect gas prices in the Midwest? How safe are tar sands pipelines? How will the pipeline affect communities already struggling with dirty air around the Texas refineries that would refine the oil from the pipeline?
But we also note that the announcement says that the State Department expects to make a decision by the end of the year. That would require a very rapid schedule that would preclude, for example, a serious consideration of an alternative other than citing the pipeline over the Ogallala aquifer. A group of ranchers and landowners from Nebraska as well as other states that could be impacted by a rupture along the pipeline route were in Washington D.C. last week to meet with their Congressional delegations and with the State Department about their concerns. The Nebraska Congressmen – especially the two Senators – have been vocal in their opposition to running the pipeline over the aquifer and through the sensitive Sandhills area. How does the State Department plan to deal with this sensitive political issue?
In the days ahead, we will review the myriad of critical issues that merit thorough analysis in the draft Supplemental EIS. The following represent a brief list of some of the top-line issues we have identified for review by the State Department:
- The purpose and need for the pipeline and consideration of alternatives: What is the purpose of the pipeline? With the revelation that TransCanada and the oil companies have explicitly sought to raise prices for tar sands crude, this question comes into sharper focus. The proponents strongest arguments have been that the oil is needed to meet our energy security goals, yet it could raise gas prices and the oil would for the first time have access to global markets. Arguments that the pipeline would reduce our exposure to Middle Eastern oil have been refuted by a recent DOE contractor’s report. To date the State Department has done little to evaluate alternatives to the pipeline, as required by NEPA.
- The greenhouse gas impacts in producing and refining tar sands oil, especially in already polluted minority communities: It is well known that tar sands oil is an extremely high carbon intensity oil. Greenhouse gas emissions from its production are three times the emissions from conventional oil. Upstream emissions driven by production of oil to fill the pipeline should be analyzed and included. At the refining end, for the first time, large quantities of bitumen, unrefined tar sands oil, would be cracked or coked into synthetic crude oil in Texas. While Texas refines heavy crude oil, bitumen is laced with more poisonous heavy metals and sulfur and requires more energy to refine. The Mayor of Houston Annise Parker and Council member and Vice Mayor Ed Gonzalez have both written letters expressing concerns about the added air pollution burden in the refinery communities. This was an issue that EPA honed in on in their comment letter from last July.
- The pipeline safety and spill response concerns of moving tar sands oil through America’s heartland and alternative routings: In a report released by NRDC in February, we raised questions about the safety of moving bitumen through pipelines that are regulated for conventional oil transport. There are no regulations in the U.S. for pipelines carrying the more corrosive and explosive bitumen-diluent mixture called DilBit. Last summer, the largest on-land spill occurred into the Kalamazoo River, when a pipeline carrying tar sands oil ruptured and spilled 800,000 gallons of oil and our report found a higher spill rate in pipelines carrying DilBit in Canada. To date, there has been no definitive review about whether these pipelines are safe. This is especially of issue for Keystone XL, as it would literally pass through the Ogallala aquifer, one of our nation’s largest and most important aquifers.
- The impact on endangered species, migratory birds and wetland habitats: The pipeline would impact the American Burying Beetle, a federally registered endangered species. It would also have an impact on migratory birds, some of which were adversely effected, like the Brown pelican, in the BP Gulf oil disaster. In Canada, where the oil will be extracted to fill the pipeline, the toll on migratory birds could be even greater and should be part of the analysis.
- The connection to Bakken oil production and Cushing oil facilities: Under NEPA, all connected actions, such as pipeline spurs and upstream production impacts for oil feeding those pipelines, should be taken into account. A year ago, the Bakken Marketlink project – connecting the pipeline to the Bakken oil fields, was called uncertain and speculative. It is no longer either and must now be included as a connected action. There is a similar situation in regard to the Cushing Marketlink project in Oklahoma. There are also transmission lines and pumping stations that must be built and that will have impacts on wetlands and other resources and require greater analysis.
Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, state department
