The Other Canadian Tar Sands Pipeline Quietly Snaking Into the U.S. Without a Permit

[cali]

While the country focuses on the pending Senate vote to approve or reject the Keystone XL pipeline, another Canadian company is quietly pressing ahead on a pipeline project that will significantly raise the volume of tar sands oil transported through the U.S. The company is pressing ahead without a permit, and environmental groups say it is flouting the law.

The company, Enbridge, is the same firm that spilled more than one million gallons of thick, sticky tar sands crude into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in 2010.

Inside Climate News reports that Enbridge applied for a State Department permit two years ago for its latest project: a bid to increase the capacity of its “Alberta Clipper” pipeline from 450,000 to 800,000 barrels of tar sands crude per day. The Clipper crosses the border from Canada into the U.S. in North Dakota, so a Presidential Permit from the department would be required by law.

But, frustrated with the lengthy permitting process, Enbridge engineered a work-around that appears to get the job done, without a permit. By running a connection between two parallel Enbridge pipelines right on the border with the U.S., the company will be able to swap the contents of each. As the crude approaches the border with Canada in the Alberta Clipper pipeline, it will be diverted into the parallel “Line 3” pipeline, and swapped back into the Clipper once it reaches the U.S.. The move is projected to increase capacity to 570,000 barrels per day. But by the middle of next year, the company says it will transport 800,000 barrels per day of Canadian tar sands into the U.S. with "no additional permit," according to Enbridge attorney David Coburn.

<snip>

http://www.newsweek.com/all-eyes-keystone-xl-another-canadian-tar-sands-pipeline-quietly-snakes-us-285256

Enbridge also has plans to reverse the Portland/Montreal pipeline and transport tar sand through some of the last wilderness in New England and through its most pristine waterways.

http://www.nwf.org/What-We-Do/Energy-and-Climate/Drilling-and-Mining/Tar-Sands/The-Exxon-and-Enbridge-Tar-Sands-Pipeline.aspx

[Autumn]

1. Well fuck they will probably get away with it too.

Does no one watch this stuff?

[cali]

2. It's hard to keep up with their sleazy moves

and generally, the MSM doesn't help.

[L0oniX]

10. MSM? They've arranged for "eco" to be associated with "terrorist".

[enlightenment]

3. State Department approved it.

Without review.

This article has a lot more information:

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20140917/state-department-draws-fire-allowing-tar-sands-pipeline-detour

[Autumn]

4. Great

[enlightenment]

6. Yep.

[bullwinkle428]

8. Hurray, fast track!

[L0oniX]

11. The one's with the money do ...and not for our benefit.

[CrispyQ]

5. With every story I read I feel more & more powerless.

Off to do something fun, like stick my fingers in an electrical outlet.

[SoapBox]

7. ^ This! ^

[NCarolinawoman]

13. Wow, do I hear you.

Instead of a circular firing squad, environmentalists are in the middle of the circle taking all the hits from every direction.

[Sunlei]

9. USA already has "one of the costliest spills, in U.S. history. The pipeline carries diluted bitumen"

Kalamazoo River oil spill company was fined about 2 million by EPA and the clean-up costs are close to a billion and continue.

The Kalamazoo River oil spill occurred in July 2010 when a pipeline operated by Enbridge (Line 6B) burst and flowed into Talmadge Creek, a tributary of the Kalamazoo River. A six-foot break in the pipeline resulted in the largest inland oil spill, and one of the costliest spills, in U.S. history. The pipeline carries diluted bitumen (dilbit), a heavy crude oil from Canada's Athabasca oil sands to the United States. Following the spill, the volatile hydrocarbon diluents evaporated, leaving the heavier bitumen to sink in the water column. Thirty-five miles of the Kalamazoo River were closed for clean-up until June 2012, when portions of the river were re-opened. On March 14, 2013 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ordered Enbridge to return to dredge portions of the river to remove submerged oil and oil-contaminated sediment.....

In 2013, in opining on the Keystone XL pipeline proposal, the EPA recommended to the State Department that pipelines that carry tar sands oil should no longer be treated just like pipelines that carry any other oil. Stephen Hamilton, an ecology professor at Michigan State University and the independent science adviser at Talmadge Creek, detailed the challenges and expense of the still-ongoing Michigan cleanup.[2][13]

They have not even finished that cleanup caused by ONE break of a old pipeline.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalamazoo_River_oil_spill

[L0oniX]

12. Exxon and the GOM disasters weren't enough to stop the crazy.