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Vermont group says pipeline may carry tar sands oil through state
News Articles | Burlington Free Press | August 26, 2011
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A tar sands oil developer might be planning to pipe its product to Montreal — and then across Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom in an existing pipeline to Portland, Maine, according to Canadian and American environmental groups.
That threatens the region’s air, water and wildlife habitat, the environmentalists say.
According to a story in Friday’s Montreal Gazette, the plan is to ship tar sands crude through a pipeline to Montreal. It was not clear whether the oil would be refined in Montreal, or whether it would be shipped south in its crude form. An existing pipeline carries oil from Portland, Maine, to Montreal. It passes through the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.
According to the Gazette, the pipeline company is considering reversing the flow through that pipeline, so it could carry product from Montreal to Portland. Jake Brown, a spokesman for the Vermont Natural Resources Council, said if the U.S. pipeline were to carry tar sands crude, that would be of concern because of the possibility of a pipeline rupture.
Tar sands oil is typically pumped at higher temperatures and pressures than traditionally extracted oil; it also contains more caustic and abrasive impurities. Those qualities increase wear and tear on pipelines, and are thought to be responsible for serious ruptures and spills in Alberta and Michigan.
The environmentalists’ concerns open up a new front in an increasingly public debate over the environmental hazards of mining, refining, transporting and consuming tar sands oil — most visibly in a civil disobedience campaign in front of the White House, and in Friday’s approval by the U.S. State Department of a Gulf Coast-bound pipeline that will cross the Great Plains and the Ogallala Aquifer.
Brown, of the Natural Resources Council, said a recently filed permit request by Alberta-based Enbridge Inc. for a small section of pipe in Ontario signals the possibility of wider distribution of the profitable, but potentially problematic, fossil fuel.
“This is a heads-up. It’s a wake-up call for New England,” Brown said.
