The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says the creek near Washington, Kansas, inundated with 588,000 gallons of oil when a 36-inch pipeline ruptured nearly a year ago is now flowing naturally.
Time will tell whether an oil spill upstream on Rattlesnake Creek will harm the birds that flock to Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, a migratory bird stop in Stafford County.
Owners of the Keystone pipeline knew a defect had formed years before the strain finally caused the pipeline to burst and flood a Kansas creek with oil last year.
A third-party review of a pipeline spill that released 500,000 gallons of crude oil onto Kansas farmland and a nearby stream was caused by a crack in the metal pipe that eventually ruptured under pressure.
The Keystone oil pipeline was operating at the bounds of its permit when it burst and released almost 13,000 barrels of oil in northern Kansas, an executive from the company said Tuesday.
Regulators want to know the risks that flawed welding or shifting ground could pose for more breaks on the Keystone pipeline, which has spilled repeatedly since 2011.
Canadian oil company TC Energy said Thursday that faulty welding contributed to an “instantaneous rupture” in its Keystone pipeline that gushed hundreds of thousands of gallons of extra sticky tar sands crude oil onto Kansas native prairie, cropland and into a creek.
Faith leaders joined environmental advocates and Kansas legislators for a vigil Monday at the Statehouse to call attention to TC Energy’s lack of transparency regarding December’s Keystone pipeline spill, which dumped 588,000 gallons of crude oil in northern Kansas.
Hundreds of workers have been hustling around the clock to recover oil for two months after the Keystone pipeline spill. Some landowners want more information about the cleanup and about why the pipeline broke.
The pipeline company that spilled nearly 600,000 gallons of oil onto fields and into a stream in north-central Kansas says it has cleaned up more than 85% of the crude.
