An underwater gas pipeline in Alaska that had been leaking gas for almost five months has finally been repaired.

The 8-inch diameter pipeline, which supplies gas for power to four Hilcorp Alaska, LLC production platforms, was found leaking on Feb. 7 when a helicopter crew spotted gas bubbling near it.

An analysis of the flow found that the pipeline likely started to leak in mid-December. Hilcorp said floating ice and other weather conditions made it too dangerous for divers to reach the leak sooner.

The leak spewed hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of processed natural gas into Alaska’s Cook Inlet, which is home to endangered beluga whales and other marine mammals. It leaked twice in 2014.

Environmental groups are concerned about both the short and long-term effects of the leak, and many are calling for a risk assessment of the area, given the extensive network of energy infrastructure in the inlet.

“It’s scary to think about how decayed some of the offshore pipelines littering Cook Inlet may be,”

Alaska Pipeline Leaked Gas into Endangered Animals' Habitat for 5 Months

 

In related news;

Oil spill data across New York released

“A huge array of oil terminal problems, gas station problems, the scale of the pollution is simply staggering, it’s just hard to believe,” Walter Hang, president, Toxics Targeting, said.

“Contaminated soil and wetlands and it was never cleaned up to the applicable standards.”

That pipeline is not alone, looking at DEC’s own data, hang found over 3,500 spills from gas stations alone and another ten from large tank storage facilities.

Hang says the spills have been known about, some for decades, but the clean up’s failed to meet state standards.

“I found sites for example from Rochester, New York almost twenty feet of oil that have never been cleaned up to state standards.”

“The companies are dragging their feet, they’re not cleaning it up, they’re studying everything to death and they’re losing notes.”

DEC rapidly responds to and cleans up thousands of contaminated sites every year in every corner of the state


Oil spill data across New York released

 

Well, all I can say is Chit happens! It's all unfortunate but it will continue happening.

 

Sad but true.The scary part perhaps is they tell us, this is the safest way we have to transport oil.Safest sure doesn't make it very safe though.

 

A Texas company building a high-pressure natural gas pipeline has been issued violations notices by the state of Ohio for spilling drilling mud in separate wetlands.



An Ohio Environmental Protection Agency notice says Rover Pipeline spilled around 2 million gallons of the mud used as a lubricant into wetlands while drilling beneath the Tuscarawas River in Stark County, about 60 miles south of Cleveland. An EPA spokesman says no mud got into the river.

The company spilled 50,000 gallons of the naturally-occurring mud call bentonite the next day in Richland County about 70 miles northeast of Columbus.



Fracking Pipeline Spilled Millions Of Gallons Of Mud Into Ohio Wetlands

 

PG&E Co. has agreed to pay shareholders $90 million to settle lawsuits stemming from the 2010 San Bruno pipeline disaster that blamed it on corporate mismanagement.



The settlement marks the end of seven years of legal battles following the Sept. 9, 2010, explosion and fire, which killed eight San Bruno residents and destroyed 38 homes. Dozens more were injured in the explosion and fire following the rupture of a high-pressure natural gas transmission pipeline that had a defective weld and was incorrectly listed in PG&E records as seamless.

Read full article:

PG&E agrees to pay $90M to shareholders in connection with San Bruno disaster

They tell us this is the safest way to transport oil and gas.Should we believe them? I don't. I guess it doesn't matter though.It's clearly nowhere near safe enough.Not indirectly through the devastation of the environment or us directly.We must demand better.If not for us,our children.

 

On Wednesday evening, March 29, a Spectra Energy gas pipeline, part of the Algonquin Pipeline, burst on National Grid property at 30 Allens Avenue. The pipeline, which witnesses said sounded like a jet airplane, spewed high pressure natural gas for over four hours. The first reports of the leak came in around 8:10pm, and the situation wasn’t officially resolved until 3:30am, though, as we shall see, even then the situation was far from being actually resolved.


The Trench, April 11


The high pressure gas leak was not simply composed of methane gas, it also contained black powder, a solid contaminant in finished product pipelines. According to Wikipedia the material may be wet and have a tar-like appearance, or dry and be a very fine powder, sometimes like smoke. The pipeline also potentially contained PCBs (Polychlorinated biphenyl). PCBs have been shown to cause cancer in animals and are believed to be carcinogenic for humans. The deleterious effects of PCBs depend on the exact kind of PCB and the nature of exposure. PCB production was banned in the United States in 1979, but is still found in pipelines.



Read full article:

Environmental impact of National Grid pipeline rupture in Providence unknown

It's little wonder is it,that we see so many protestors against pipelines being installed in their communities.I don't think I would prefer it if I had one running across my back yard.Would you?

Further down in the article,get this;

So by law,that leak didn't need to be fixed,you know because it's just air we all breath.That thing we can't be too bothered in protecting.That pesky air stuff that we all need to live on.We can't let a small thing like that,get in the way of "progress".
We need to do a whole lot better than we're doing friends.This isn't what we want to leave the next generation.

 

LOYAL, Okla. – State and federal agencies are investigating what caused a crude oil pipeline to leak thousands of gallons of oil onto surrounding farmland in Kingfisher County last week.

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) notified the federal government about the spill Friday afternoon, according to data from the National Response Center. Follow up reporting to the NRC Sunday listed ‘internal corrosion’ as the likely cause of the discharge of approximately 450 barrels (nearly 19,000 gallons) of crude oil from the Buffalo Cashion pipeline, owned by Houston-based Plains All American Pipeline, L.P.

“Luckily, we hadn’t put (cattle) out here yet. We were fixing to turn cattle out on this grass,” Pope said. “One of the head guys was telling me, ‘Oh, this is so good for the soil,’ and, like I told him, I said, ‘Well, why is everybody wearing a hazmat suit?’”

Instead of focusing on his cattle or prepping for harvesting wheat in a couple months, Pope, 58, along with his wife, Sandra, are now walking their land, collecting oily water, grass and taking photos as evidence of the damage – damage you can smell.

“Yeah, it’s pretty strong over there,” Pope said, pointing out the window of his truck as he drove along the property. “It just smells like it’s got a diesel smell – smells like diesel you’d put in your tractor.”

The U.S. EPA said more than 270,000 gallons of crude oil leaked from Plains pipelines and one tank, into navigable waterways or nearby waters, between June 2004 and September 2007.

In 2010, Plains agreed to pay $3.25 million in penalties in connection to the 10 spills in Texas, Louisiana, Kansas and Oklahoma.

“What bothers me is we keep seeing the EPA being cut so much,” Pope said. “A lot of the regulations that have been put on the oil companies are there for a reason. Sure, there are probably some that are over-regulated but, without those regulations, I wonder if I would have had as quick of a response for guys to come out here and start cleaning this up.”

Pipeline leaks 18000 gallons of crude oil onto Kingfisher Co. farmland

..............

I hear ya farmer Pope.That has a lot of us bothered.

 

MARMARTH, N.D. — A pipeline leak in southwest North Dakota has contaminated a tributary of the Little Missouri River, the North Dakota Department of Health said Monday, April 24.

Oil emulsion, or a mixture of crude oil and brine, leaked from an underground flow line operated by Continental Resources, the department said. The spill was discovered by the company's field staff on Saturday about 5 miles southwest of Marmarth. Marmarth is 3 miles west of the Montana border in southwest North Dakota.

Preliminary estimates put the spill at 25 barrels, or 1,050 gallons, said Bill Suess, spill investigation program manager.

The health department has been on site and continues to monitor the investigation and cleanup.

Pipeline leak contaminates creek in southwest North Dakota

 

A Cook Inlet natural gas pipeline that leaked for much of the winter, sparking concerns about the environment and wildlife, has been permanently repaired by undersea divers for Hilcorp Alaska, the state reported Monday.

Repair divers installed a temporary repair clamp that stopped the leak on April 13. On Friday they installed a permanent repair clamp over the gash on the pipeline, located northwest of Nikiski.

"Divers returned to the site on (Saturday) and detected no bubbles or leaks," the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation said Monday in its sixth — and final — situation report on the incident.

Months after leak, Hilcorp makes permanent repairs to Cook Inlet

 

That's why we need to build more pipelines. So we can shut down the old ones that are starting to rust out.

 

About 5,000 barrels of oil, or about 210,000 gallons, gushed out of the Keystone Pipeline on Thursday in South Dakota, blackening a grassy field in the remote northeast part of the state and sending cleanup crews and emergency workers scrambling to the site.

“This is not a little spill from any perspective,” said Kim McIntosh, an environmental scientist with the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources. No livestock or drinking water sources appeared to be threatened, Ms. McIntosh said, and no farm buildings or houses are within a mile.

The spill, near Amherst, S.D., comes just days before regulators in neighboring Nebraska decide whether to grant the final permit needed to begin construction on a different pipeline proposal, the Keystone XL, which would be operated by the same company. An announcement in Nebraska is expected on Monday.

The pipeline company, TransCanada, said in a statement that the South Dakota leak was detected around 6 a.m. local time on Thursday. The pipeline was shut down, and the cause of the leak was under investigation.

“TransCanada appreciates the collaborative support of local officials, emergency response personnel and commissioners in Marshall County, as well as the landowner who has given permission to access land for assessment, identification and cleanup activities,” the company said in its statement.

A photo of the spill, which was posted to the company’s Twitter account, showed a large, darkened area in a field. The Keystone Pipeline is part of a 2,687-mile system that carries crude oil from Alberta to several points in the United States, including Illinois and Oklahoma.



Thursday’s episode is one of several major pipeline spills in recent years. More than a million gallons leaked from a pipeline into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in 2010, and 50,000 gallons of oil gushed into the Yellowstone River in Montana in 2015, contaminating drinking water there.

Oil pipelines have faced greater scrutiny since thousands of protesters gathered near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota last year to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline. The site of Thursday’s spill was near the boundaries of the Lake Traverse Reservation, home of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate tribe.


Keystone Pipeline Leaks 210,000 Gallons of Oil in South Dakota

 

This must be why I do so well at their casinos

 

LOL!!!

Bingo

 

What does that mean? Your not implying that Native Americans shouldn't own casinos and make money but instead go live off the land and hunt buffalo again instead are you? In case you missed it,that choice has long since been taken away.

Hilarious isn't it? The earth is your mother too.This is our problem.People joke and laugh about killing ourselves.So funny.It's just the home of our children guys.No big deal.Laugh it up.How dare we demand better.How dare we point out our flaws so we can do better.Nah.Easier to make fun and laugh at those who care.