A recent letter inspired me to do some research regarding the safety of pipelines. The first barrel of oil traveled through the Alaska pipeline in 1977 The only significant spill occurred as a result of an environmentalist’s blowing a 1-inch old in the line at Steele Creek in February 1978 at a loss of approximately 16,000 barrels. The pipeline was shut down again in January 2011 when a leak was discovered the basement of the booster pump at Pump Station 1 where repairmen recovered 10 gallons of spilled oil. There may well have been other accidents, but apparently none that made the news.
The Exon Valdez which spilled 750,000 barrels into Prince William Sound's Alaska. Every year around 225 large trucks carrying approximately 8,500 gallons of oil and gas are involved in fatal traffic accidents. That totals as many as ½ million gallons a year. I couldn’t find any specific information about accidents involving trains carrying oil and gas, but it is probably also significant.
The viscosity of the oil pumped through Keystoe Pipeline does require that dangerous chemicals have to be added to make it pumpable, but all considered the EPA’s own worst case scenario suggests that 1200 barrels may be spilled over the course of the 50 year expected life of the pipeline (See http://watercenter.unl.edu/downloads/2011-Worst-case-Keystone-spills-report.pdf)
We may not like the idea of pipelines, but it’s pretty obvious that environmentally it’s one of the safest to move it from point to point.
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