An Oil Spill in Kansas Has Shut Down the Keystone Pipeline

An oil spill in northern Kansas has shut down a serious pipeline that transports crude oil from Canada to Texas.

Thousand of barrels of oil spilled from the Keystone Pipeline into Mill Creek on Wednesday night time. Canada-based TC Energy, which operates the pipeline, remoted that part of the Keystone system after the corporate noticed that the pipeline’s stress had dropped, the Associated Press reported. The firm estimated that the spill has launched 14,000 barrels of oil into the encompassing setting.

“We have contained downstream migration of the release. The system remains shutdown as our crews actively respond and work to contain and recover the oil,” a TC Energy assertion mentioned. “Our primary focus right now is the health and safety of onsite staff and personnel, the surrounding community, and mitigating risk to the environment.”

The assertion didn’t say what precisely triggered the current leak however claimed the corporate is conducting “around-the-clock air monitoring” within the surrounding space of the spill, the AP stories.

The floor water at Mill Creek has been affected by the spill, however “there are no known impacts to drinking water wells or the public,” a statement from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mentioned. The EPA is overseeing TC Energy’s cleanup response. Randy Hubbard, the Washington County Emergency Management coordinator, advised the Associated Press that there aren’t any evacuation orders as a result of the spill occurred in a rural space.

This is just not the primary time the Keystone Pipeline system has spewed poisonous oil into the setting. In October 2019, it leaked greater than 380,000 gallons of crude oil in Edinburg, North Dakota. And in November 2017, the exact same pipeline spilled about 210,000 gallons of crude oil in Amherst, South Dakota. This specific spill was attributable to a crack within the pipe that originated from the pipeline’s building.