Pipeline Keeps Quietly Poisoning You

Dakota Pipeline builder Energy Transfer Parteners had another massive poisoning incident — several million gallons of drilling mud all over Ohio’s important state wetlands — the fossil fuel corporation’s eight violation in seven weeks. It then poisoned air with open burning. Although Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline, is supposedly under fire from federal and state regulators, it continues to quitely poison millions of people, it initially had had full approval “from the top”.

“Staff has serious concerns regarding the magnitude of the incident (several orders of magnitude greater than other documented [horizontal directional drilling] inadvertent returns for this project), its environmental impacts, lack of clarity regarding the underlying reasons for its occurrence, and the possibility of future problems,” federal regulators wrote.

The phrase “inadvertent returns” is industry speak for a certain type of spill or release of construction material.

The FERC letter came less than a week after the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency proposed a $431,000 fine for violations and ordered the company to immediately implement its emergency response plan.

Energy Transfer Partners‘ about $4.2 billion Rover project is expected to transport gas from processing plants in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio across twin 42-inch pipelines to a delivery hub in northwestern Ohio.

“They don’t have a clue what they are doing or they just don’t care. This is represented by two things: the number of violations within a short period of time and their flippant attitude towards the Ohio EPA,” Sierra Club dirty fuels organizer Cheryl Johncox said.

In addition to spilling bentonite, the company engaged in “impermissible open burning,” and air pollution violation. Ohio EPA director Craig Butler told the Washington Post that ETP’s response to the violations was “dismissive” and “exceptionally disappointing.”

When finished, the Rover pipeline will bring 3.25 billion cubic feet of poisonous gas each day through West Virginia, Ohio, and Michigan to Ontario, Canada.