Pipeline spills 176,000 gallons of crude into creek about 150 miles from Dakota
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
The Dakota Access line is running a few miles from my workplace here in Iowa. I'm not opposed to the pipeline, per say, but the politics behind it are crap. It's approved by our utility board, which is composed of persons selected by our Governor, who has personal financial interest in the pipeline company. What's worse, the pipeline doesn't start or end in Iowa, so it just runs through here and is a total loss for us. No new jobs created. Needless to say, the utility board approved it along with eminent domain. (Shouldn't eminent domain be illegal when the land is going to a private company and not public use? The constitution is kind of clear on that, not sure how they get around it.)
The pipeline workers here are causing lots of trouble too. They're trespassing and tearing up land well outside of their easements. They're littering. They bury the scrap pipe and trash instead of hauling it out. They tear up the roads and hold up traffic.
Honestly, it's just such a net loss for us. And this is before the inevitable leaks. It's a racket.
There was a controversial 5-4 Supreme Court decision on this in 2005, Kelo v. New London.
They have cleaned up ~20% and are presumably taking their sweet time until spring, when snowmelt will cause enough flow in the currently-frozen portions of the creek to help hide their shame.
"it just runs through here and is a total loss for us"
http://nobakken.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/ETP-Report.pdf
States can also tax income of the owner of the pipeline. But pipelines are usually structured as pass-through entities (e.g. MLP), and there are enough state and federal loopholes--special deductions, deferments, etc--that any income tax is probably minimal. The paper doesn't bother trying to estimate that revenue, AFAICT.
Figures for sales, use, and income taxes in that paper are only for construction and maintenance of the pipeline. It's not tied to actual pipeline throughput. I think it would be unconstitutional for states to directly tax pipeline throughput except for the state where the oil originates. Louisiana does this and the legal issues are really complex AFAIK.
Chapter 7 of that paper also examines accident risk, which is quite interesting.
In case the link disappears, the report heading is
An Assessment of the Economic and Fiscal Impacts
of the Dakota Access Pipeline in
North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois
Prepared for Dakota Access, LLC
Prepared by Harvey Siegelman, Mike Lipsman and Dan Otto
Strategic Economics Group
West Des Moines, Iowa
November 12, 2014> Since 2006, [operators Wyoming-based True Cos.] have reported 36 spills totaling 320,000 gallons of petroleum products...
According to this article's cited numbers, this single spill is larger than all of the previous decade's 35 reported spills ... COMBINED.
These protests could not be more timely. I can only imagine how many spilled gallons have gone unreported: this spill was discovered by a landowner, not the intended automated monitoring equipment.
I am also always disappointed in the low quality images news sites use. I understand the need for a responsive page design but a click to enlarge would help out a lot.