Landowners ask DEQ to require safety conditions requested by Senator

By Northern Plains Resource Council

Today, the Northern Plains Pipeline Landowners Group (NPPLG), a committee of the Northern Plains Resource Council, and 34 landowners crossed by the proposed Keystone XL pipeline wrote Montana Department of Environmental Quality Director Richard Opper, asking him to accommodate safety requirements sought by Senator Jon Tester for the Keystone XL pipeline.

“Director Opper, your issuance of the Major Facility Siting Act certificate for the Keystone XL pipeline is our last hope,” the letter says.

Senator Tester wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on August 17, outlining many of the concerns NPPLG has been raising since the pipeline was first proposed.

In his letter, Senator Tester asked Secretary Clinton to require a publicly available Oil Spill Response Plan for rural communities before pipeline operations begin. NPPLG has pushed for an Emergency Response Plan before construction begins. Such a plan was not in the final environmental impact statement (FEIS) issued Friday and has not been released.

“The requirements that Senator Tester urges Secretary Clinton to assure the pipeline meets are common sense,” said Chuck Nerud, a Circle-area landowner crossed by the pipeline. “However, having an Emergency Response Plan that emergency responders actually see should not be optional. How are our volunteer responders supposed to know what to do if they aren’t even allowed to see the plan?”

Senator Tester asked the State Department to adopt further safety measures to protect Montana farmers, ranchers, land and water, beyond the 57 steps often cited by TransCanada as extra steps it has agreed to. Senator Tester’s letter calls those 57 requirements a “minimum” and notes that most of them were undertaken on both the Bison and Keystone I pipelines; the Bison natural gas pipeline has since exploded and the Keystone I pipeline has had 14 leaks and spills since it began operating just over a year ago. The FEIS does not include any additional requirements in response to any of these spills, nor to Senator Tester’s request.

Senator Tester also urged Secretary Clinton to require consistent thickness and quality of steel for the entire pipeline route, not just for High Consequence Areas. This has long been a concern of NPPLG members who do not believe their land should be treated as “low consequence areas” when it comes to public safety. According to the FEIS, most of the route will not have thicker pipe, or be considered “high consequence,” although the location of High Consequence Areas was not included in the FEIS because, according to the FEIS, doing so would give too much information to terrorists.

In short, NPPLG members said, the State Department has rejected Senator Tester’s request to increase safety for Montanans.

“Given the 14 spills in the past year from the Keystone I pipeline, the Bison Pipeline explosion, the tar sands spill in Michigan last year and Montana’s own experience with an oil spill in the Yellowstone River, pipeline safety is just too important to get the shoddy effort that the State Department has done. We need Montana’s DEQ and Director Opper to step up to the plate,” said Terry Blevins, an NPPLG member from Wolf Point.

NPPLG, a committee of the Northern Plains Resource Council, is a group of Montana landowners crossed by the proposed Keystone XL pipeline who have organized to negotiate with the company an equitable contract that protects the landowners and public safety.