http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/44220-for-15-years-energy-transfer-partners-pipelines-leaked-an-average-of-once-every-11-days
Energy Transfer Partners Pipelines Leaked Hazardous Liquids Every 11
Days for 15 Years, on Average
Friday, April 20, 2018
By Sharon Kelly, DeSmogBlog | Report
5,475 days, 527 pipeline spills: that's the math presented in a new
report from environmental groups Greenpeace USA and the Waterkeeper
Alliance examining pipelines involving Dakota Access builder Energy
Transfer Partners (ETP). It's based on public data from 2002 to 2017.
All told, those leaks released 3.6 million gallons of hazardous liquids,
including 2.8 million gallons of crude oil, according to data collected
from the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration
(PHMSA).
That doesn't include an additional 2.4 million gallons of "drilling
fluids, sediment, and industrial waste" leaked during ETP's construction
of two pipelines in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan.
Also left out: air pollution and leaks from natural gas pipelines, which
were beyond the scope of the new report but which play a significant
role in climate change and can cause explosions.
Across the entire industry, hazardous liquid pipelines spilled a total
of 34.7 million gallons during the past decade, directly causing 16
deaths and $2.7 billion worth of damage. More than one in ten of those
gallons came from ETP.
"That’s a red flag for a company that has an extensive network across
the country and is building even more pipelines as we speak in
Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and other states," said Greenpeace USA research
lead Tim Donaghy, PhD. "ETP and Sunoco's track record of spills,
including several striking examples of big spills, are indicators of a
constant threat to communities and water. This could happen again to
communities along the pipeline routes."
A Long List of Spills and Accidents
ETP spilled crude oil over 400 times, "refined petroleum products" such
as gasoline 92 times, and other flammable or toxic fluids 27 times, the
researchers found. And many of the spills involved large amounts of oil
-- roughly one in four of ETP's pipeline oil spills involved 2,100 or
more gallons of oil.
In one 2005 incident, 436,000 gallons of crude oil spewed from a tank
farm into a Delaware River tributary outside Philadelphia. That same
year, a pipeline built in the 1950s dumped enough oil into the Kentucky
and Ohio river to leave a 17-mile oil slick. And in 2009, a Texas
pipeline caught fire and leaked over 140,000 gallons near Colorado City,
Texas.
Cleaning up those sorts of spills is no easy job. Out of 3.6 million
gallons ETP spilled, almost half -- a total of more than 1.5 million
gallons -- was never mopped up, the report found. In addition, the
company caused $115 million in property damage, according to federal
tallies.
Sunoco, which merged with ETP, is included in the report's analysis. In
2012, ETP first merged with Sunoco, formally absorbing pipeline-wing
Sunoco Logistics Partners in 2017. The combined companies operate over
70,000 miles of US pipes. That's "nearly long enough to encircle the
earth three times," the report notes.
The new report finds that ETP's pipelines have a somewhat
higher-than-average rate of problems. Twelve percent of ETP's spills
polluted water sources, finds the report, titled "Oil and Water: ETP and
Sunoco's History of Pipeline Spills." That's compared against a 10
percent national average. And three out of eight incidents nationwide
where PHMSA specifically noted harm to drinking water supplies involved
ETP pipelines.
The pipeline industry's record has grown worse over time, the report
notes, reaching a peak of 454 spills in 2015 before dropping "slightly"
to 404 in 2017.
Bayou Bridge Pipeline
The company's controversial pipeline construction projects across the US
include the Bayou Bridge pipeline that would tie in to the Dakota Access
pipeline and carry oil from North Dakota's Bakken shale down to the Gulf
of Mexico, the Mariner East 2 pipeline that will carry the plastic
precursor ethane across Ohio and Pennsylvania to the Atlantic coast, and
the 713-mile Rover pipeline, that will transport natural gas through
Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, where millions of
gallons of drilling fluid have spilled during construction.
The Bayou Bridge pipeline's route through wetlands and drinking water
supplies for over 300,000 people has community and environmental
advocates particularly concerned.
"Construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline represents a high risk to
hundreds of waterways across the entire state of Louisiana," said
Waterkeeper Alliance Clean and Safe Energy Campaign Manager Donna Lisenby.
The new report warns that if ETP's track record remains unchanged, the
Bayou Bridge pipeline will experience multiple spills of 2,100 gallons
or more of hazardous materials after it's built. "Assuming the US
system-wide rate for significant crude oil spills of 0.001 per year per
mile, we estimate that the Bayou Bridge Pipeline would suffer eight
significant spills during a 50-year nominal lifetime," the report
concludes. Photographs of Bayou Bridge construction taken by
photojournalist Julie Dermansky, who has reported on Bayou Bridge for
DeSmog, are included in Greenpeace's report.
"We're not happy with Bayou Bridge because we know that Energy Transfer
Partners is accident prone," said Harry Joseph, a pastor from St. James,
Louisiana, where the Bayou Bridge pipeline will terminate. "We fear that
something will happen in St. James -- it's just a matter of time because
of ETP’s history. The company has had problems."
Sinkholes, Spills and Suing
Those fears will sound familiar to some Pennsylvanians living near the
Mariner East 1 and 2 pipelines, where the new report tallied over a
hundred "inadvertent releases" and accidents, some of which contaminated
locals' water wells, polluted local trout streams, or even caused
massive sinkholes to open up. One of those sinkholes erupted just 300
feet from railroad tracks where Amtrak trains and local commuter rail
operates, prompting the state to issue an emergency shutdown.
Many living near Mariner East's path are concerned about the risk of
more accidents. "This is an organic farm," West Cornwall farmer Phil
Stober told ABC News, "and if it damages our groundwater, what recourse
do we have?"
The company's most notoriously controversial project was, of course, the
Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL), where an encampment by people calling
themselves "water protectors" in Standing Rock, North Dakota, drew
national attention as law enforcement used attack dogs, tear gas, and
high-pressure water cannons in subzero temperatures against Indigenous
peoples and allies who opposed DAPL construction.
"We all recall the Dakota Access pipeline construction process because
of the inspiring resistance from Indigenous communities that wanted to
protect their water," said Greenpeace's Donaghy. "Those Water Protectors
were right; that pipeline alone leaked four times in 2017."
An additional three incidents along the full stretch of the Dakota
Access-Energy Transfers Crude Oil pipeline were also reported to federal
authorities, including a roughly 5,000 gallon oil spill in Tennessee.
Other ETP pipeline construction projects that have had a lower national
profile also caused major spills. The Permian IIExpress pipeline dumped
361,200 gallons of crude near Sweetwater, Texas, in the largest pipeline
leak of 2016.
Last August, ETP sued Greenpeace, BankTrack, and Earth First!, claiming
that anti-pipeline advocates were engaged in racketeering against the
firm and demanding $900 million in damages. Greenpeace is currently
defending against those charges in court and argues that the case is
what's known as a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or
SLAPP suit, aimed at silencing discussion of harms caused by ETP. (This
month, a federal judge effectively dropped Earth First! from that
lawsuit, following arguments that Earth First! is a philosophy and not
actually an organization. ETP had attempted to hold a magazine called
Earth First! Journal liable as representing Earth First!) The lawsuit
against Greenpeace is still ongoing.