Public Utilities Commissioner Gary Hanson said last week, the day TransCanada reported its 5,000-barrel oil spill in Marshall County, that he is “extremely concerned” that the Keystone pipeline is leaking so frequently (certainly more frequently than its June 2006 pipeline risk assessment seemed to promise).
Hanson elaborates on his concerns and tells the Aberdeen American News that the PUC could revoke TransCanada’s pipeline permit:
“Leaks are certainly unacceptable. We understand that leaks will take place. I made this statement during the permitting process in 2007 when I was asked by the news media, I said ‘yes the pipe will leak in a lifetime, one expects that a leak will probably take place in a lifetime greater than 100 years’. But certainly one does not expect three leaks to take place in less than a decade. So it is very disturbing.”
The series of leaks has left Hanson to question whether TransCanada followed the conditions set forth when the commission approved the permit for the pipeline.
“We granted the permit with conditions, those included the methods of construction, environmental considerations, liabilities for damages, bonding, a variety of 50 conditions with about 40 sub-conditions,” Hanson said.
…Hanson said the PUC has the authority to revoke a permit and prohibit TransCanada from continuing operation “at least for a period of time to examine the pipe properly.”
“In the most egregious situation, the Public Utilities Commission has the ability to revoke the operator’s permit and prohibit them from operation,” he added [Shannon Marvel, “SD Utilities Commissioner ‘Deeply Disturbed’ by Keystone Leak,” Aberdeen American News, 2017.11.21].
Given 5,000 barrels on the ground in Marshall County, now would be a perfect time to tell TransCanada to keep its pipeline shut down and spend a few months re-inspecting every inch of the pipeline in South Dakota for more pipeline weaknesses and potential leaks.
Thanks Cory for making me clean the screen of my computer. I could not hold the coffee in when I read the headline. For these guys to revoke the pipeline is a joke when they already knew the punchline before it was delivered to them. The PUC wants to have it both ways. See, you dummies that put us into office, we are responsible and we “stood up” to the big oil…while we unanimously allowed them to poison the water and destroy the land. Frauds all with not a lick of integrity in the bunch.
Yes. The State of South Dakota has immense power, if they want to use it. All these permit violations and leaks are adding up to sewage ash scam, Williams pipeline and Brohm Mining scale. Two of those are Superfund sites.
South Dakota is a push over when it comes to initial permitting, but if the operation turns out to be a bad actor, there will be consequences, but I wouldn’t count on the officials. Citizens have to take charge, because so far the officials have done squat. Citizens can petition for rules or file citizen suit notices to make start making state and federal regulators pay attention. There comes a point where you have to hit them over the head with a 2X4. Three leaks in this short amount of time shows something is very wrong with the construction and/or operation of the pipeline. It should be shut down and completely re-inspected and re-tested.
There is a superfund site just across the border in iowa between LeMars and Orange City. Diamond Vogel paints dumped stuff there for years.
New Keystone might be as bad or worse since Drumpf rescinded his promise they would use American steel in the pipes.
Just a reminder. Unlike every other state that Keystone goes through, South Dakota actually gave TransCanada massive multi-million dollar tax breaks to build this pipeline they were going to build anyway without tax breaks. We basically threw money at the foreign company for no good reason.
DENR said today I believe that the permitting process DOES NOT ALLOW CONSIDERATION of the most recent leak because…(protective industry legislation no doubt). SDPBT or whatever they call it
Even if posturing or symbolic, it’s generations late for any politician to actually jerk a knot in someonesass. It only has to occur once or twice and folks get the message for a long time. Yet SD’s been a vassal of incompetent governance and enforcement for so long that no one can recall when was the last time that a SD public official actually stood-up for the public interest.
Oh come on guys—don’t you see–this is no threat—not even the hint of a threat to the pipeline–this is South Dakota doing normal business–this is asking for a payoff that is all—a little hush money–it is normal business procedure in SD–that’s all it is!
The possibility of revoking TransCanada’s Keystone 1 permit is real. A smart Democrat interested in taking Kristie Fiegen’s seat on the PUC would read up on the 57 conditions the PUC imposed on TransCanada in 2008, talk to landowners like Kent Moeckly, Lillian Anderson, and Bill Tisher about possible violations of those conditions (not just in the current spill but in bad construction practices and inadequate reclamation efforts), and lead a public conversation about whether Fiegen’s PUC has enforced those conditions on our corporate overlords.