More than 3 months after ExxonMobil Pipeline Co.'s 12-in. OD Silvertip pipeline spilled 1,000 bbl of crude oil into the Yellowstone River near Laurel, Mont., neither ExxonMobil nor the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) have determined the spill's cause.
In the spill's aftermath, ExxonMobil Pres. Gary Preussing told a US House of Representatives committee that the company had operated the pipeline in compliance with all regulations but took full responsibility for the spill. An ExxonMobil spokesperson explained that the company had shut down the pipeline for 1 day in May to analyze its safety record regarding anticipated seasonal flooding. Determining the pipeline safe, the company placed it back in operation.
The last in-line inspection of the pipeline took place in 2009. Depth tests completed in December 2010 determined the line to be buried 5 ft below the Yellowstone's bed. PHMSA requires 4 ft of cover when a pipeline crosses a river at least 100 ft wide. The same survey found 12 ft of cover on the crossing's south side.
A subsequent survey requested by PHMSA in June 2011 after heavy flooding in May confirmed 12 ft of cover still in place on the bank. Some have speculated that the Yellowstone's high water level might nonetheless have contributed to the pipeline break, perhaps exposing it to damage from debris being carried downstream by the flood waters.
Regulations, Keystone XL
ExxonMobil and PHMSA will presumably succeed in finding a cause. In the meantime, however, Silvertip has been restarted and bills renewing current pipeline safety regulations have begun to make their way through Congress. The bipartisan Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee approved its version of the bill in May without opposition. Two House committees passed versions of the legislation last month.
But Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has moved alone to block fast-track passage of the regulations, despite support both from industry trade groups, such as the Association of Oil Pipelines, and public advocacy groups like Pipeline Safety Trust. The PHMSA-administered pipeline safety program is paid for by the pipeline industry, but Paul opposes federal government regulations in general.
And against this backdrop, a larger and increasingly public debate continues over US Department of State approval of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline. More than 500 people were arrested outside the White House in late August for protesting the pipeline on largely environmental grounds.
But Keystone XL makes sense on a purely environmental basis when compared with the alternatives: shipping the oil to China and refining it there, or engaging in a rapid expansion of rail capacity and shipping it to the US Gulf Coast that way instead.
Remain engaged
Pipelines have a decades-long record as the safest available form of transportation for both hydrocarbon liquids and gas. But given the leak into the Yellowstone River, the extended search for a cause, the fact that the leak happened on a pipeline very recently found to comply with regulations, and now the specter of these regulations being sucked into the political gamesmanship increasingly typical of Capitol Hill, a degree of public skepticism regarding Keystone XL probably shouldn't come as a surprise.
It is up to the pipeline industry to respond to this skepticism not by retreating behind its barricades, but by continuing the process of public outreach, hearings, and education that have come to typify the way it does business. Meeting future US energy needs will require building more pipelines. Building these pipelines in a timely and efficient manner will in turn require establishing the public trust necessary to avoid each and every project becoming bogged down in the type of controversy now surrounding Keystone XL.
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