After Community Word editor Clare Howard wrote about Enbridge’s oil pipeline through Tazewell and Woodford Counties almost two years ago, the issue has continued to percolate, like tar pits belching bubbles of air, from the cancelled Keystone XL Pipeline to Native Americans’ demonstrations around the Standing Rock tribal lands in the Dakotas (both of which could be renewed under a Trump administration).

Yet the public in general and central-Illinois residents in particular are largely unaware of a network of pipelines already beneath the area, or forgot, or feel powerless about the threats they pose.

“When central Illinois residents learn of ‘Mississippi Stand’ protests near Keokuk, Iowa, or on tribal lands in North Dakota against the Dakota Access Pipeline, they need to know that those efforts are also attempting to protect land and water for people in Illinois,” said Sandra Lindberg, an environmentalist who works with Illinois People’s Action. “Eventually, most oil pipelines travel through our state – though most Illinois residents remain dangerously unaware of the reality.”

In fact, Dakota Access this month quietly finished the Illinois leg of its 1,100-mile pipeline.

“Pipeline companies and those who support them just don’t want us to know,” Lindberg said of the lack of awareness or apathy. “Illinois citizens exhibit these attitudes because they have been encouraged to think this way. Mainstream media either ignore or minimize pipeline risks for both existing and proposed varieties.”

Pipelines near or under rivers, lakes or aquifers are increasingly vulnerable to effects of extreme weather, an underreported aspect of both pipeline activists and the climate-change debate, Lindberg says.

“The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) says that extreme weather, including floods and flash floods, have caused pipelines running under rivers and creeks to experience what is termed ‘river scouring,’” she says, “a process whereby rapidly moving water scours away the river bottom, exposes pipe to fast-moving water and water-borne debris, increasing stresses on the pipe to the point that the pipe breaks or leaks.”

Prospective homeowners routinely look at inspections about foundations, termites, etc., but usually neglect the presence of pipelines.

“Central Illinois residents own property without understanding how pipelines located near homes or beneath farmland can compromise their financial security, health [and] environment,” she says.

Area oil or gas pipelines may be old and made from diverse materials, Lindberg says.

“Construction techniques utilized have changed over time, often because the industry abandoned less-effective method,” she says, “yet old pipes remain. Because the federal Integrity Management Program only applies to ‘high-consequence areas’ (based on population for gas and hazardous liquid pipelines, and for hazardous liquid pipelines – areas of unusual sensitivity, or drinking-water supply or a commercially navigable waterway).”

Fewer than 150 inspectors monitor 72,000 miles of U.S. pipelines, but technology exists to help safeguard pipelines. However, it’s not used, says William Rau, professor emeritus in industrial sociology at Illinois State University, whose career focused on energy-related issues.

“Adequate monitoring is possible and, in fact, is standard operating practice in refineries, petrochemical plants, and nuclear power stations,” Rau says. “Such operations employ real-time monitors that quickly sense minute amounts of escaping gases or liquids. There are external leak detectors that mimic the senses. These detectors are fast and accurate.

“In contrast, the internal leak detection systems pipeline companies rely on line flow and pressure anomalies that are picked up by SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition),” he continues. “SCADA is NOT a leak-detection system. SCADA looks for such things as less oil coming out than going into the pipeline to estimate the probability of a leak. It is slow, insensitive and subject to false alarms.”

Pipelines could be safer, Rau adds.

“Adequate protection would involve several different kinds of external leak detectors at all high consequence areas (HCAs) with the government – not pipeline companies – making HCA designations, and automatic shut-off valves placed in front of HCAs [to] quickly shut down the pipeline until it is fixed,” he says. “Instead of external leak detection systems, they employ cheap internal systems. SCADA employs statistical algorithms to estimate whether they might have a leak. As a result, more leaks are detected by private citizens who happen to be in the vicinity of a pipeline when it breaks than by the low-cost, so-called ‘detection’ systems now used.”

Besides leaks, Lindberg says, related risks from pipelines range from soil compaction during construction to earthquakes in areas where fracking is used to harvest natural gas. But she’s hopeful.

“Sometimes, the only way to get people to think about change is to remind them that their current comfort is jeopardizing the lives of their children and grandchildren,” she says. “A change to sustainable practices will actually be of benefit to them. It will be cheaper, in the long run. It will be safer. It will be healthier. It will be a lifestyle we can enjoy for a very long time.”

Rau is both realistic and idealistic about what regular people can do.

“For starters, don’t count on PHMSA to do anything,” says Rau. “PHMSA has been described as ‘the little agency that can’t’ – can’t inspect, can’t enforce or fine, can’t write regs, can’t meet Congressionally mandated deadlines. Having the pipeline company’s telephone number in one’s cell phone and daily inspections of the pipeline route would be a good idea.

“Long term?  Get off natural gas by switching to heat pumps for heating, hot water, and clothes-drying,” he continues. “Reduce gasoline consumption significantly, by buying an electric-vehicle, plug-in hybrid, or hybrid car. The simplest solution to ensuring pipeline safety is to eliminate the need for pipelines.”

 

There have been 26 pipelines accidents in 15 states this year, according to news-media reports, killing four, injuring 28 and causing mass evacuations and untold amounts of property and environmental damage to areas including Will County and Wabash County in Illinois.

The Pipeline Safety Trust, a nonprofit public-interest advocacy group promoting pipeline safety through education, recommends the following list of DON’Ts in case of a pipeline accident:

DO NOT

touch, breathe or make contact with leaking liquids;

start an engine of any kind;

strike matches or create a flame of any kind;

use a telephone or cell phone (these can ignite airborne gases);

turn on or off any electrical switches (these also can ignite airborne gases);           

drive into a leak or vapor cloud area.

SOURCE: SOIL (Save Our Illinois Land)