TransCanada shuts down Keystone after oil seeps to surface
The company, Canada's second largest pipeline operator, said the "potential incident" was first reported on Saturday afternoon.
"TransCanada immediately began the process to shut down the pipeline, activate its emergency response procedures and dispatch ground crews to assess the situation," said the company in a statement. "Crews initially found visible signs of oil on a small surface area."
News of the oil seeping to the surface could be inconvenient for TransCanada, which is now trying to convince communities across Canada to accept its proposal for a gigantic new pipeline infrastructure project — the 4,600-kilometre Energy East pipeline.
Leak discovered by passerby
The chairman of the South Dakota watchdog, Chris Nelson, confirmed that there was a spill from Keystone, and that state environmental officials were overseeing the cleanup. In a brief phone interview, he told National Observer that a member of the public may have been the one that discovered the spill.
"My understanding is that it was a passerby that observed it and called the company," said Nelson, chairman of the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission.
If confirmed, this would mean that the company's leak detection system failed to identify the incident.
No comments:
Post a Comment