Reuters Teams working to clean up huge oil spill in USA 10/12/2022 13:07

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by Erwin Seba and Nia Williams

(Reuters) – Residents near the site of the worst pipeline leak in a decade in the US picked up on the noise and smell as emergency crews worked to clean the pipeline in near-freezing temperatures and investigators sought clues as to what caused the leak.

Pipeline operator TC Energy said Friday it is considering plans to restart the pipeline, which carries 622,000 barrels of oil per day to US refineries and export hubs. It didn’t give details of the violation or when the restart on the broken thread might start.

“We smelled it first thing in the morning; it was bad,” said Dana Cecrle, 56, a Washington resident. But he downplayed the interruption: “Things break down. Pipelines break, oil trains derail.”

Environmental experts from as far away as the Mississippi were helping to clean up, and federal investigators swept the area to determine what had caused the 36-inch (91 cm) pipeline to break.

THIRD LARGE SPILL

TC Energy plans to restart a section of pipeline that sends oil to Illinois and another section that brings oil to Cushing on Saturday, Bloomberg News reports, citing sources. Reuters did not confirm these details.

This was the third leak of several thousand barrels of oil from the 4,324 km pipeline since it opened in 2010. An earlier Keystone leak caused the pipeline to be shut down for about two weeks.

EPA spokesperson Kellen Ashford said TC Energy has about 100 employees leading the cleanup and containment efforts, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is overseeing and monitoring it.

The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Substances Administration (PHMSA) regulator said the company shut down the pipeline seven minutes after receiving a leak detection alert.

Washington County, a rural area of ​​about 5,500 people, is about 200 miles northwest of Kansas City.

Randy Hubbard, Washington County Emergency Management Coordinator, told Reuters that the spill did not threaten water supplies or force residents to evacuate. Workers quickly established a containment area to prevent oil spilled in a creek from flowing downstream.

“There is no drinking water for human consumption that comes out of it,” Hubbard said.

(Reported by Erwin Seba of Washington, Kansas and Nia Williams of Calgary, Alberta; additional reporting by Arathy Somasekhar, Rod Nickel, and Stephanie Kelly)

((Translation Editorial São Paulo))

REUTERS NF