Opponents of Keystone XL say more spills are likely

Estimates of the damage caused by the Yellowstone River oil spill last weekend continue to vary according to who gives them. ExxonMobil, which originally downplayed the size and extent of the spill, saying it had spread just ten miles downriver, have now admitted that it has actually spread as far as twenty-five miles. Other sources, however, including landowners along the river, say the oil has gone much farther than that and that it could reach 240 miles.

This is bad news for TransCanada Pipeline, which is seeking to build its controversial Keystone XL pipeline through the state of Montana and all the way to Texas. The proposed pipeline would have approximately twenty times the capacity of the ExxonMobil line and would therefore, critics argue, have caused a spill twenty times more catastrophic than the present one. That would mean up to 1,000,000 barrels of oil spilled into the Yellowstone River in the same time period. Extrapolating in the same way for the distance covered by the leak, a Keystone spill would have potentially travelled 4,800 miles. 

A report prepared by an environmental engineer, John Stansbury, at the university of Nebraska, argues that TransCanada has significantly underestimated the risk of spills on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. That line will carry more than 700,000 barrels of crude more than 1,600 miles. TransCanada estimates a possible eleven spills over the fifty-year life of the Keystone line. Stansbury believes that number to be closer to ninety-one.

What is most troubling to environmental advocates is that the ExxonMobil pipeline was built in compliance with existing federal safety regulations.

Anthony Swift, a policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the fact that Exxon Mobil's Silvertip line was apparently in compliance with federal rules underscores that those rules need to be strengthened.

"These are the sort of spills that we shouldn't be tolerating," Swift said. "We need to incorporate tougher safety standards."