*Groups sue feds to stop pipeline*
*By Janell Cole*
*State Capitol Bureau - 08/08/2008*
BISMARCK — Environmental groups, including one from North Dakota, have sued
the U.S. State Department to stop the TransCanada Keystone Pipeline, saying
the government failed to fully consider its health and environmental hazards
before giving approval.
The listed hazards include global warming.
The company said there is nothing wrong with how the federal government
examined the line's environmental impacts.
The Natural Resources Defense Fund, Dakota Resource Council of Dickinson,
N.D., and Dakota Rural Action of South Dakota want an injunction stopping
the line's construction.
Suit filed Wednesday
Plaintiffs filed the suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in the District
of Columbia. In it, they said the State Department should not have granted a
Presidential Permit allowing the line to cross into the United States. The
government didn't follow the National Environmental Policy Act and issued a
deficient environmental impact statement, the suit alleges.
The 30-inch diameter pipeline is under construction this summer between
Walhalla and Cogswell, N.D. Its full length, 2,148 miles, would run from
Hardisty, Alta., through Saskatchewan, Manitoba, North Dakota, South Dakota
and Nebraska before turning east and terminating in Illinois. A future leg
will continue south to Oklahoma.
It is designed to carry, at first, 435,000 barrels per day of crude mined in
northern Alberta's tar sands fields, starting in late 2009. The capacity
will expand to 590,000 barrels per day when the extension to Oklahoma is
completed, in late 2010. The company also recently told North Dakota
regulators it has plans to double the line's capacity soon thereafter.
Plantiffs: Increase in pollution
Plaintiffs say their members will be harmed by U.S. refineries' conversions
to process the heavy crude oil planned for the pipeline.
"The prospect of the new pipeline is spurring refinery expansions and
modifications that will lead to increased air and water pollution for
residents of Midwestern and other states," according to the complaint.
Plaintiffs, quoting Trans-
Canada's own testimony about possible leaks, said a leak of 1.5 percent from
the line could spill "the equivalent of 35 9,000-gallon tanker trucks a
day," and not be discovered for as many as 90 days. The line will operate at
1,440 pounds per square inch.
Controversial
TransCanada spokesman Jeff Rau said late Thursday, "We have yet to see the
(court) filing. But the review conducted by the environmental process was
thorough and appropriate."
The North Dakota Public Service Commission granted the line status as a
common carrier and issued a route permit Feb. 21.
Extracting oil from the vast tar sands in northern Alberta is controversial.
It is either strip-mined from the surface in huge pits and processed into
crude that will flow or is extracted from below ground using steam injection
to warm the tar deposits.
Opponents say tar sands production releases as much as three times the
amount of greenhouse gases as conventional oil production and will
significantly damage Canada's boreal forest ecosystem, which they say is the
world's largest carbon storehouse. Extraction and processing of tar sands
oil "also requires vast amounts of natural gas and water," according to the
plaintiffs' news release.
