According to federal data, an oil spill in a creek in northeastern Kansas this week is the largest for an onshore crude oil pipeline in more than nine years and by far the largest in the history of the pipeline. Keystone.
On Thursday, Canada’s TC Energy estimated the spill on the Keystone system at around 14,000 barrels and said the affected pipeline segment had been “isolated” and oil was contained at the site with dams or barriers. He did not say how the spill happened.
After a drop in pressure on the pipeline that carries oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast of Texas, the company said it shut down its Keystone system Wednesday night. Oil spilled into a creek in Washington County, Kansas, about 240 kilometers northwest of Kansas City.
Zack Pistora, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club of Kansas, noted that the spill in his state was larger than the previous 22 spills combined on the Keystone Pipeline, which began operations in 2010.
“It’s going to be months, maybe even years before we fully understand this disaster and know the extent of the damage and have everything cleaned up,” he said.
In September 2013, a Tesoro Corp. in North Dakota ruptured and spilled 20,600 barrels, according to U.S. Department of Transportation data. The company, which worked to recover the oil for years but recovered only a fraction of the spill, said a lightning strike may have caused the rupture.
A more costly spill occurred in July 2010, when an Enbridge Inc. pipeline in Michigan ruptured and spilled over 20,000 barrels into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River. Hundreds of homes and businesses were evacuated and federal regulators later ordered Enbridge to dredge contaminated sediment from the river.
The Keystone Pipeline’s previous largest spill occurred in 2017, when more than 6,500 barrels spilled near Amherst, South Dakota, according to a US Government Accountability Office report released last year. The second largest occurred in 2019 near Edinburgh, North Dakota, when it leaked 4,515 barrels.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said there are as yet no known effects on drinking water wells or the public in connection with this week’s spill, and the oil will not s is not moved from the creek to larger waterways. No evacuations were ordered because the rupture occurred in rural pastures, according to Randy Hubbard, the Washington County emergency management coordinator.
TC Energy said it has environmental monitoring in place at the site, including 24-hour air quality monitoring.
“Our primary focus at this time is the health and safety of staff and on-site personnel, the surrounding community, and the mitigation of environmental risk,” a company statement read.
Junior Roop, the sexton of a cemetery near the site of the spill, said people could smell the oil in town.
“It was like walking past a refinery,” he said.
Fears that spills could pollute waterways have sparked opposition to TC Energy’s plans to build another crude oil pipeline in the Keystone system, the 1,200-mile (1,900 kilometer) Keystone XL, which would have crossed the Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. Critics have also argued that using crude oil from the tar sands in western Canada will make climate change worse, and President Joe Biden’s cancellation of a US permit for the project has led the company unplugged last year.
A spokesperson for the US Energy Information Administration said the Keystone Pipeline transports about 600,000 barrels of oil per day from Canada to Cushing, Oklahoma, where it can connect to another pipeline to the Gulf Coast. This compares to the total of 3.5 to 4 million barrels of Canadian oil imported into the United States every day.
The spill caused a brief spike in crude prices on Thursday. Benchmark US oil rose more modestly – around 1% – on Friday morning as fears of a supply disruption were overshadowed by greater worries about an economic slowdown in the United States and other major country that would reduce the demand for oil.
Tom Kloza, an analyst for the Oil Price Information Service, said oil is now seen as plentiful, “and this incident will not have a noticeable impact on gasoline or diesel prices.” Prices at the pump will continue to fall by pennies a day or more, and that between Canadian imports and the strategic petroleum reserve, the United States has enough crude to last more than three years at current demand, did he declare.
Patrick De Haan, analyst for GasBuddy, which operates a price-tracking app, said there was pressure to fix the pipeline quickly and keep refineries supplied, adding that “if it lasts more than a few days, it could cause trouble”, for price at the pump.
Previous Keystone spills have resulted in outages that lasted about two weeks, but this outage could be longer because it involves a body of water, RBC Capital Markets analysts said in a note to investors. Depending on the location of the spill, it’s possible part of the pipeline could restart sooner, they said.
The spill happened 8 miles northeast of Washington, the county seat of about 1,100 residents. Local farmer Paul Stewart said some of it was contained on his land using yellow dams and an earth dam. The spill happened at Mill Creek, which empties into the Little Blue River.
The Little Blue feeds the Big Blue River, which empties into Lake Tuttle Creek north of Manhattan, home of Kansas State University. The EPA said the oil did not affect the Little Blue.
Chris Pannbacker said the pipeline runs through his family’s farm. She and her husband drove north from their farm and crossed a bridge over Mill Creek.
“We looked at it from both sides, and it was black on both sides,” said Pannbacker, a reporter for the Marysville Advocate newspaper.
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Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas and Foley reported from Iowa City, Iowa. David Koenig contributed reporting from Dallas.
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