Keystone XL Pipeline Shut Down After 5,000-Barrel Spill In South Dakota
Well this is awkward. After months/years of protests targeting the Keystone XL pipeline from environmentalists worried about oil spills, TransCanada has now been forced to shut down the pipeline following…drum roll please…a 5,000 barrel oil spill in South Dakota. According to The Hill, the pipeline was taken offline at 6am this morning following a leak that was discovered about 35 miles south of a pumping station in Marshall County, South Dakota.
Workers took the Keystone oil pipeline offline on Thursday after it spilled 5,000 barrels of oil in rural South Dakota,officials said.
A TransCanada crew shut down the pipeline at 6 a.m. Thursday morning after detecting an oil leak along the line, the company said. The leak was detected along a stretch of the pipeline about 35 miles south of a pumping station in Marshall County, South Dakota.
TransCanada estimates the pipeline leaked 5,000 barrels of oil, or about 210,000 gallons, before going offline. The company said it’s working with state regulators and the Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to assess the situation.
The South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources heard about the leak at about 10:30 a.m. Thursday, ABC affiliate KSFY reported.
For those who aren’t familiar with the project, the 1,179 mile Keystone XL pipeline links Canada’s Alberta oil sands to U.S. refineries. While a portion of the pipeline has been operating, part of it has still not been approved by state regulators.
Here is the statement on the incident posted by TransCanada earlier this morning:
At approximately 6 a.m. CST (5 a.m. MST) today, we safely shut down the Keystone pipeline after we detected a pressure drop in our operating system resulting from an oil leak that is under investigation.
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