A controversy simmering in the Midwest could have ramifications for fuel supplies, the environment, or both, down the road.

TransCanada, a fuel transport company, is proposing to build a 1,700-mile oil pipeline called Keystone XL, from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast.

The pipeline would link the tar-sand fields of northern Alberta to Texas refineries and begin operating as early as 2013. The U.S. State Department is scheduled to say yay or nay later this year.

Proponents — including the Canadian government and the oil industry — say it would provide a significant boost in oil supply to the United States. Opponents, including environmentalists, say it carries huge environmental risks and would have a minimal effect on gas prices.

The line would carry 900,000 gallons of fuel per day, according to Bob van der Valk, an independent petroleum industry analyst who does work for 4Refuel, a Lynnwood supply company.
Several states along the route have already approved the pipeline, van der Valk said.

“TransCanada executives met with various private and public officials and hammered out agreements to have local oil producers gain access to this much needed pipeline to make the shipping of crude oil more economical for U.S. domestic oil producers,” van der Valk wrote in his blog Friday.

The pipeline would essentially replace the amount of oil the United States currently purchases from Libya, about 2 percent of our total, he said. He wouldn’t hazard a guess as to how much it would reduce fuel prices, though he wrote in his blog that gas prices could hit $7 a gallon without the pipeline.

The Keystone XL would cut across environmentally sensitive areas in Montana and the Nebraska Sand Hills. It also would also cross the Ogallala Aquifer, an underground reservoir that provides water for agriculture and drinking water for 2 million people, according to published reports.

The product derived from tar sand is called bitumen, which requires more energy to remove from the ground and is more corrosive than conventional oil. Operations in Alberta already have created toxic holding ponds that pollute downstream watersheds, and a new TransCanada line carrying bitumen already had had nine spills, according to reports.

“These spills, along with other pipeline leaks and fatalities in the past year, have put pipeline safety under the microscope,” Andrew Schenkel wrote for the website CommonDreams.org.

North Cascades update

State crews plan to begin work today to clear the North Cascades Highway, Highway 20, which closes every year because of massive amounts of snow that fall there.
It might take a little longer than usual, though. The state Department of Transportation is down one snowblower because one of them got partly mashed by an avalanche March 31 at Stevens Pass. No one was hurt.

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