KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Federal regulators have issued warnings repeatedly over the life of the Keystone pipeline that operators aren’t doing enough to prevent corrosion and don’t follow proper construction procedures.
But despite a history of warnings and large spills, the Keystone pipeline failed again last week, dumping 14,000 barrels — or 588,000 gallons — of oil in northern Kansas. It’s the largest spill since the pipeline began operations about a decade ago.
After more than 20 spills, the crude oil pipeline’s Canadian owner, TC Energy, has paid just over $300,000 fines. That’s 0.2% of the more than $111 million in property damage it has caused. That doesn’t include the damage from its latest spill, which has yet to be totaled.
“This has been a long-standing systemic problem,” Kenneth Clarkson, a spokesman for Pipeline Safety Trust, said in a statement. “The fines are just not meaningful to these extremely profitable operators.”
The Keystone pipeline carries crude oil from Canada to Texas and Illinois with one branch running across northeast Kansas and another south through central Kansas. The system drew controversy for years because of a proposed extension, called the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would have run through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska before tying into the existing system near the Kansas border.
In its history, the pipeline has spilled more than 26,000 barrels of oil, including last week’s spill, which is larger than all its others combined. It occurred near Washington, Kansas, not far from the Nebraska border. Oil sprayed onto farmland and flowed into Mill Creek, turning the water black.
Following the spill, TC Energy deployed crews to build a dam to prevent the oil from traveling downstream along Mill Creek. They’ve been working to vacuum the oil from the creek.
As of Monday evening, TC Energy said it had removed 2,598 barrels of oil and water from Mill Creek.
“Vacuum trucks and our crews are operating around the clock to drive this effort…oil has not breached the containment area,” TC Energy said in a statement.
TC Energy has been providing periodic updates in news releases since the spill announcing more and more staff have responded to the spill. It increased its crew to more than 250 on Sunday. Now, it says more than 300 personnel are on site, including third-party environmental specialists, who it will not identify.
“We do not have more to share on third-parties at this time,” it said when asked.
State and local emergency management personnel and the Environmental Protection Agency are also overseeing cleanup.
The spill has drawn attention to the pipeline once again and sparked criticism from environmentalists and pipeline safety specialists.
Zack Pistora, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club, said in an email that federal records “clearly (indicate) a problematic history of violations, penalties and corrective actions associated with the Keystone pipeline.”
“The fact that this spill is much greater than all the previous spills combined, that the frequency of large spills is increasing and that the root cause failure has yet to be identified ought to give the company and regulators serious consternation about this pipeline’s future,” Pistora said.
