Keystone Pumping Station Annoys Neighbors with Noise; TransCanada Plants Trees

You think TransCanada/Keystone pipeline opponents are noisy? Try living next to one of the Keystone pumping stations, like the one near Fort Ransom, North Dakota, that's bothering its neighbors:

The Keystone pump station that contains four, 5,000-horsepower electric turbines has been operating lower than the permitted 55-decibel level since it came on line, according to the company and state regulators. But Bruce Pantzke, who owns a farm less than a mile from the Keystone pump station, said it emits a sound that’s like “fingernails on a chalkboard.”

Not all sound is the same, he said.

“There is a lot of difference between 55 decibels of soothing elevator music and the whine off those turbines,” he said.

Pantzke said there are 18 homes within three miles of the pump station. The facility also is within a few miles of two state parks.

“It’s not something you grow used to and you can’t sleep with the windows open when that thing is going,” Pantzke said of the high-pitched whine from the turbines. “A lot of the neighbors are getting more irritated and sensitive to it every day” [James MacPherson, "Trees Planted to Hush Pipeline Pump Noise," AP via Jamestown Sun, 2013.06.08].

TransCanada says coyotes are louder than its plant, and it would cost too much to be a good neighbor and soundproof the facility. The company says they've installed hundreds of thousands of dollars of noise-reducing insulation, but neighbor Bruce Pantzke says that insulation may have made the noise worse. Nonetheless...

For its sound-buffering project, TransCanada purchased some 110, 6-foot tall spruce trees from a local nursery at a cost of about $40,000, Howard said. The company also is attempting to acquire additional easements to plant more trees in the area.

Howard said there are no “scientific studies” to indicate how much the trees will reduce the noise, if at all [MacPherson, 2013.06.08].

Even when they are trying to be helpful, TransCanada can't manage to do serious science and do right by the neighbors who must bear the externalities of TransCanada's oil profiteering.