Posted on Dec 24, 2022
Pipeline company says Kansas oil spill contained, but chemicals found downstream
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The oil spill is the biggest in the Keystone pipeline's history and it dumped a sludgy form of crude oil that poses special challenges for a cleanup.
Chemicals from the Keystone pipeline spill in north-central Kansas have shown up farther downstream in Mill Creek than the oil company’s repeated statements suggest.
TC Energy and regulatory agencies say the oil spill is limited to a containment area — the length of the stream that lies between where the company’s pipeline burst and where workers quickly built an earthen dam about four miles downstream.
Yet state environment officials say benzene, toluene and other volatile organic compounds have been detected beyond the two emergency dams that were installed after the Keystone pipeline’s worst environmental accident to date.
The contamination that migrated downstream of the four-mile, oil-soaked stretch of Mill Creek poses a threat to animals but not to human drinking water, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said Wednesday.
Chemicals from the Keystone pipeline spill in north-central Kansas have shown up farther downstream in Mill Creek than the oil company’s repeated statements suggest.
TC Energy and regulatory agencies say the oil spill is limited to a containment area — the length of the stream that lies between where the company’s pipeline burst and where workers quickly built an earthen dam about four miles downstream.
Yet state environment officials say benzene, toluene and other volatile organic compounds have been detected beyond the two emergency dams that were installed after the Keystone pipeline’s worst environmental accident to date.
The contamination that migrated downstream of the four-mile, oil-soaked stretch of Mill Creek poses a threat to animals but not to human drinking water, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said Wednesday.
Pipeline company says Kansas oil spill contained, but chemicals found downstream
Posted from kcur.org
Oil
Chemicals
Canada
Water
Posted >1 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."Diluted bitumen, or dilbit, spills pose special risks to the environment because this particular type of crude oil sinks, part of a weathering process that can start within days.
When that happens in moving water, a National Academies of the Sciences report says, “there are no proven techniques for containment. … Various techniques have been proposed but few have been shown to be effective.”
A state lawmaker who attended a briefing with TC Energy on Monday said the company maintains that its spilled dilbit hasn’t begun sinking yet. But the company didn’t explain how it could tell, Johnson County state Rep. Rui Xu said.
TC Energy hasn’t answered questions from the Kansas News Service about how it will detect or protect against underwater dilbit migration.
The state says water exiting the dammed area doesn’t contain visible oil."
..."Diluted bitumen, or dilbit, spills pose special risks to the environment because this particular type of crude oil sinks, part of a weathering process that can start within days.
When that happens in moving water, a National Academies of the Sciences report says, “there are no proven techniques for containment. … Various techniques have been proposed but few have been shown to be effective.”
A state lawmaker who attended a briefing with TC Energy on Monday said the company maintains that its spilled dilbit hasn’t begun sinking yet. But the company didn’t explain how it could tell, Johnson County state Rep. Rui Xu said.
TC Energy hasn’t answered questions from the Kansas News Service about how it will detect or protect against underwater dilbit migration.
The state says water exiting the dammed area doesn’t contain visible oil."
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