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Oil Trains, ETP Pipeline Proposal Pose Unnecessary Risk for East River

Last updated on 2014.08.10

Todd Epp reported Friday that Mobridge, Aberdeen, Harrisburg*, and Canton* are all in "oil train blast zones," near rail lines carrying explosive crude oil shipments. According to the ForestEthics map, so are Lemmon, Milbank, much of Sioux Falls, and North Sioux City. (McCook Lake, we will destroy you one way or another!)

Meanwhile, Energy Transfer Partners of Dallas, Texas, would like to run a 30-inch pipeline carrying an initial volume of 320,000 barrels a day of Bakken crude from the oil fields down to around Mobridge, then hypotenusally to the Hartford–Sioux Falls–Harrisburg metroplex and then from corner to corner across Iowa to Patoka, Illinois, the same refining terminus served by TransCanada's original Keystone pipeline. Doing business via subsidiary Dakota Access, LLC, ETP is sending letters to landowners along the proposed route seeking permission to survey the land and announcing ETP's plans to seek a temporary 150-foot construction easement and a permanent 50-foot access easement. And if landowners don't want to play ball, they could face eminent domain, exercised by a private company for its private profit.

As a purely domestic pipeline, ETP's Bakken–Patoka project is not subject to the State Department review and Presidential approval that (let us give thanks!) has delayed the Keystone XL pipeline. But ETP will need approval from South Dakota's Public Utilities Commission. PU Commissioner Gary Hanson, who is seeking re-election this year, promises the PUC will listen to public input. Dusty Johnson, who traded his seat on the PUC for the seat at Governor Daugaard's right hand, says the Governor hasn't taken a position on ETP's pipeline, but golly gee, we gotta move that oil somehow:

“I know as a country we’re trying to diversify how we use and create energy. But for the foreseeable future, oil’s going to be a big part of that,” said Dusty Johnson, chief of staff to Gov. Dennis Daugaard and a former member of the Public Utilities Commission. “If we’re going to use oil, the question is, where do we want that oil to come from? I would prefer North American oil, whether that comes from North Dakota or Canada or elsewhere.”

Johnson said Daugaard, sympathetic to pipelines in general, hasn’t decided about the Energy Transfer Partners pipeline. The governor’s primary issue is whether the pipeline is safe, Johnson said.

“There can be good pipelines and there can be bad pipelines,” he said [David Montgomery, "Oil Pipeline Plan for Eastern S.D. May Trigger a Battle," that Sioux Falls paper, 2014.07.12].

Oh, the easy surrender to inevitability! Dusty sounds a bit like the mean dad saying, "You can pick: belt or stick. But you will get your beating." We do have the option to not use the oil, or not use as much as fast. We do have the policy option to make the use of petro-products more expensive to protect the general welfare and counter any economic impacts with the stimulus of investing in renewable energy.

We don't have to move more crude through South Dakota by rail or pipeline. We don't have to double or triple the chances of blowing Harrisburg off the map. We don't have to burn that oil.

*Correction 2014.07.14 23:51 CDT: An eager reader and "railfan geek" says the Forest Ethics folks may have read the map wrong and unnecessarily alarmed the good folks hearing train whistles in Sioux Falls, Harrisburg, and Canton. Rick tells us that the line running southwest from Willmar enters South Dakota at Sherman, continues to Garretson, then bounces east across the border again. Big oil trains would take that line. A secondary BNSF line does branch off at Garretson and head down Harrisburg- and Canton-way, but you won't find oil trains on that secondary line.

18 Comments

  1. mike from iowa 2014.07.13

    I don't believe they will be allowed to traverse the iowa Great Lakes/prairie pot hole region(for obvious reasons) and then you have some of America's most expensive farmland ever,already being disrupted by wind generators. If it goes through I hope they hit every large hog confinement and shut them down.

  2. Tim 2014.07.13

    "But ETP will need approval from South Dakota's Public Utilities Commission. PU Commissioner Gary Hanson, who is seeking re-election this year, promises the PUC will listen to public input."
    The PUC listens to the public on every issue, then votes to back their corporate masters on everything. They have not voted against BHP, MDU or the telecoms in years, I have no reason to believe this will be different. Once King Daugaard announces his support, which he will, the PUC will fall right in line.

  3. larry kurtz 2014.07.13

    As is the case with Kristi and don Juan Thune donors far outweigh the concerns of everyday South Dakota.

  4. Stan Gibilisco 2014.07.13

    We do have the policy option to make the use of petro-products more expensive to protect the general welfare and counter any economic impacts with the stimulus of investing in renewable energy.

    We also have the option to make the use of solar and wind produces cheaper by offering breaks to manufacturers and vendors of those products, rather than taxing the bejesus out of working familes and hoping that they can reap the benefits of all that stimulus before they starve to death.

  5. Paul Seamans 2014.07.13

    From personal experience with the KXL I would advise landowners to be in no hurry to sign anything, including the right to survey. Talk with your neighbors and with landowners along the Keystone pipelines, these pipeline companies will try to divide and conquer and pick off the low lying fruit. Take your time, ignore their threats (and there will be threats), and most importantly; organize. You can't fight these corporations alone, there is strength in numbers.

  6. John 2014.07.13

    If it must be built, this is not a concession, then it must be in an existing infrastructure corridor. Zero new surface disturbance. No more arbitrary lines on a map.

  7. Jerry 2014.07.13

    How about following the Red River north and east to Canada where if could be refined and shipped to Europe and China as that is where it is going anyway.

  8. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.07.13

    Good point, John: if we have to build it, why not run it through the Keystone 1 corridor?

    And Paul, dittos: the rich guys form corporations (and ETP looks like a conglomeration of corporations) to make it harder to fight them. Gotta fight organization with organization.

  9. Rick 2014.07.13

    I viewed the map created by ForestEthics and I believe they have incorrectly labeled part of the rail route that extends from Garretson to Sioux Falls and then south to Canton. BNSF has a main line that extends from Willmar, MN, heading southwest across the western part of that state and entering South Dakota near Sherman. It continues to Garretson where a secondary line splits off the main and heads to Sioux Falls and continues through Harrisburg to Canton. At Canton, BNSF line heads west to Mitchell. The line south out of Canton is owned by the state of South Dakota and operated by D & I Railroad. Therefore, oil trains do not pass through Sioux Falls, Harrisburg and Canton.

    Oil trains on the main line out of Willmar when they reach Garretson would continue south on the main that briefly heads back into MN before crossing into Iowa, passing through Sioux Center and on to Sioux City and Lincoln, NE. I know this because I am a railfan geek. Now there are a number of ethanol unit trains that originate at many of the ethanol plants located on BNSF's main line extending from Aberdeen to Mitchell where the line splits: one to Canton/SF, the other to Sioux City. The average speed limit on that line from Aberdeen to SC is 40 mph. And ethanol is flammable ... Ethanol plants are located in Aberdeen, Redfield, just north of Mitchell at Loomis, Scotland, Marion and Chancellor.

  10. Deb Geelsdottir 2014.07.13

    "hypotenusally"

    Hahaha! I love it! Did you just make that up? Free Dictionary can't find it.

  11. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.07.14

    "hypotenusally"—I've never seen the word before, Deb. Sometimes, these things just hit me... and sometimes, folks like you understand exactly what I mean.

  12. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.07.14

    Rick, I bow to your railfan geekery! Great correction. I will promote that to the main text above.

    Curious: would an ethanol train explode with as much force as an oil train?

  13. Deb Geelsdottir 2014.07.15

    Great reference Jerry. Climate change deniers are doing great harm.

  14. WR Old Guy 2014.07.15

    Rick has just touched the tip of the iceberg on hazardous materials shipped by rail. Ethanol is alcohol and a tank car of ethanol can explode just like an oil tank car. The key is the buildup of pressure inside the tank caused by an outside heat source such as a fire or the rapid combustion of the product in the tank caused by a tear in the tank and an ignition source.

    Some other common products shipped in pressurized `tank cars are propane, anhydrous ammonia, chlorine, and a long list of chemicals that are used as additives or part of a manufacturing process. Many are flammable and some are poisonous. A large chlorine leak requires a evacuation zone one mile wide, one mile upwind, and two miles downwind.

    The oil trains are no more dangerous that other chemicals shipped by rail. The same media hype was applied at one time to propane shipments.
    Here is one that got national attention in 1970.
    http://www3.gendisasters.com/illinois/6526/crescent-city-il-exploding-tank-cars-june-1970.

    The railroads do not own the tank cars in most cases. They are owned by private companies who pay the railroads for transportation. The railroads would like to see new standard for safety and construction of the tank cars. Private industry doesn't' want to spend the money for the new designs.

  15. Chris Blackwell 2014.08.13

    Good work that someone else noticed "hypotenusally."
    I have directed this to our engineers for clarification, although I know what it means. I haven o problem however, with creative use of language when it is well done and well intended.. How about: ..."in a hypotenusal manner..."

  16. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.08.14

    Four words instead of one? Nah. Once you can resort to hypotenusal, what's to stop you from building the adverb? "In a ___ manner" is equivalent to "-ly". Same meaning, less ink.

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