Media Reports On Keystone Pipeline Leak. Here’s What You Need To Know.

Headlines this week included mention of a massive oil leak from the Keystone pipeline, but the story is not exactly as it seems.

While it does involve the Keystone pipeline, the leak was not from the XL pipeline that was so hotly debated during the Obama administration. The 383,000-gallon crude oil spill occurred in North Dakota, about 50 miles from the Canadian border, The New York Times reported. The spill covered about a half-acre of wetland, which was not near any homes and was not a drinking water source.

Karl Rockeman, director of the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality’s division of water quality, told the Times that “It is one of the larger spills in the state,” but emphasized that the spill would not affect any residents.

TC Energy released an update on its efforts to clean up the spill, saying “The approximate size of the impacted area is 2,500 yd2 or less than half the size of a football field.”

“We continue to inform regulatory agencies and local stakeholders of our progress. We have provided an initial estimate that 9,120 barrels of oil was released; approximately half the size of an Olympic-sized swimming pool,” the company said on October 31. “Our crews remain focused on oil recovery as they plan to make repairs to the pipeline. We will provide updates as they become available.”

It is still unclear what caused the spill. An internal investigation is underway. 

Naturally, activists who opposed the Keystone XL pipeline took a victory lap after the spill was announced. Catherine Collentine, associate director of the Sierra Club, told the Times that oil spills are a guarantee.

“We don’t yet know the extent of the damage from this latest tar sands spill, but what we do know is that this is not the first time this pipeline has spilled toxic tar sands, and it won’t be the last,” she told the outlet. “We’ve always said it’s not a question of whether a pipeline will spill, but when, and once again TC Energy has made our case for us.”

President Barack Obama had denied an expansion of the Keystone pipeline back in 2015. President Donald Trump allowed the construction to begin once he came into office. As the Times reported, the main pipeline has had several spills since it began operating in 2010:

This is the second major incident for the pipeline system in the last two years. In 2017, a spill coated a stretch of grassland in South Dakota with more than 407,000 gallons of leaked Canadian crude oil, which was nearly twice as much as originally estimated, according to the company. The pipeline also leaked about 16,000 gallons each in spills in 2011 in North Dakota and in 2016 in South Dakota.

In addition, another oil spill 300 miles west of Edinburg, North Dakota, resulted in nearly 84,400 gallons of crude oil leaking into pastureland. The pipeline responsible for that spill was operated by New Horizon Resources and not part of the Keystone pipeline.