NOVEMBER 1, 2023:
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The operator of the Keystone pipeline system has finished cleaning up a massive December 2022 oil spill, and the creek affected by it is flowing naturally again, the company and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency say.
Pipeline operator TC Energy promised to continue monitoring the site along Mill Creek in Washington County, about 150 miles (241 kilometers) northwest of Kansas City. The Canada-based company and the EPA’s regional office announced Tuesday (Oct. 31, 2023) that berms that had diverted the creek around the spill site had been removed.
The EPA said Kansas’ environmental agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also will continue to inspect the area for the next five years or “until it is determined that monitoring is no longer needed.”
The spill dumped nearly 13,000 barrels of crude oil — each one enough to fill a standard household bathtub — into the creek as it ran through a rural pasture. The oil was recovered by mid-May, the company has said.
The company said that it has started “demobilization” at the site and, “expect to complete these activities by year end.” The pipeline carries oil from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast.
The company reported in February 2023 that a faulty weld in a a pipe bend caused a crack that grew over time under stress. An engineering consultant firm’s report for U.S. pipeline regulators that became public in May cited pipeline design issues, lapses by its operators and problems caused during pipeline construction as factors in the spill.
The consultants’ report said the bend had been “overstressed” since its installation in December 2010, likely because construction activity itself altered the land around the pipe. It was the largest onshore spill in nearly nine years.
MARCH 13, 2023:
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — U.S. government regulators have stopped allowing a large part of the Keystone oil pipeline to operate at higher-than-normal pressures following a massive oil spill in northeastern Kansas in December 2022. The order this week from the U.S. Department of Transportation covers 1,220 miles of the Keystone pipeline in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Illinois. Regulators already were requiring lower pressures for 96 miles of the pipeline from southern Nebraska into central Kansas, including the spill site in Washington County. Regulators allowed higher than normal maximum pressures starting in 2017. The latest order comes ahead of the Kansas Legislature’s first hearings on the spill scheduled for Tuesday (March 14, 2023).
JANUARY 10, 2023:
MISSION, Kan. (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday (Jan. 10, 2023) that it has reached an agreement with a pipeline operator to clean up a spill that dumped 14,000 bathtubs’ worth of crude oil into a rural Kansas creek. The agency said in a news release that the Dec. 7, 2022, rupture of the Keystone pipeline affected 3 1/2 miles of a creek as it flows through rural pastureland in Washington County, about 150 miles northwest of Kansas City. The order requires TC Oil Pipeline Operations Inc. to recover oil and oil-contaminated soil and vegetation and contain the further spread of oil in the creek.
DECEMBER 29, 2022:
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A pipeline operator has put a damaged section in Kansas back into service, a little more than three weeks after a spill dumped 14,000 barrels of crude oil into a creek. Canada-based T.C. Energy announced Thursday (Dec. 29, 2022) that it had completed repairs, inspections and testing on its Keystone pipeline in northeast Kansas. The company said that allowed for a controlled restart of the section from near the Nebraska-Kansas line to northern Oklahoma. The 2,700-mile Keystone system carries heavy crude oil from western Canada to the Gulf Coast and to central Illinois. The spill occurred Dec. 7, 2022, in a rural county northwest of Kansas City.
DECEMBER 26, 2022:
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The operator of a pipeline that spilled about 14,000 barrels of heavy crude oil into a northeastern Kansas creek says it has permission from U.S. government regulators to reopen the repaired segment where the rupture occurred. Canada-based TC Energy did not say exactly when it would reopen the section of its Keystone pipeline system from Steele City near the Nebraska-Kansas line to Cushing in northern Oklahoma. The company said it will have crews working through the Christmas holiday, including conducting rigorous testing and inspections. The Dec. 7, 2022, spill dumped the crude into a creek in Washington County, about 150 miles northwest of Kansas City.
DECEMBER 11, 2022:
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Federal data shows a spill from the Keystone pipeline this week dumped enough oil to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool into a northeastern Kansas creek. The data shows it’s the largest for an onshore crude pipeline in nine years, and the biggest in the system’s history. The U.S. Department of Transportation data also shows Keystone’s operator was allowed to exceed typical maximum pressure levels. The pipeline’s Canada-based operator, TC Energy, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Friday the spill was contained, although cleanup efforts will continue into next week.
DECEMBER 9, 2022:
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — An oil spill in a creek in northeastern Kansas has shut down a major pipeline from Canada through the Plains and to the Texas Gulf Coast. The spill briefly caused oil prices to rise Thursday (Dec. 8, 2022). Canadian-based TC Energy said it shut down its Keystone system Wednesday night following a drop in pipeline pressure. It said oil spilled into a creek in Washington County, Kansas, about 150 miles (241 kilometers) northwest of Kansas City. The company estimated the spill at about 14,000 barrels but did not say what caused it. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said no wells providing drinking water were affected and the oil didn’t move into larger waterways.
Comments