US Politicians Prefer Pandering to Governing

Public Officials Posture for the Masses while Following (policy) Orders of their (pay) Masters.

In the United States of America, seats in public office are bought, purchased like so much rank meat or cheap dirt. U.S. politicians and public office holders do not govern, they do not provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare of the people of the United States of America and its people—these people and principles are irrelevant to the common crop gerontocrats. 

The bought meat that populates the offices of state in the United States pander to narrow interests (the interests of their paymasters) who revolve in, out and around Washington and states houses, who lobby, direct policy, and purchase the meat and seat of the unprincipled people who are permitted to hold public office.

When everything's for sale, nothing has substantive value. 

Case of Black Gold and public Officials’ failure of due diligence

Failure to set about the hard work of envisioning and planning for the all-round health of the United States; its basic broad-based economy, its workforce and workers, and life sources (air, land, water, protection of all aspects and elements of the natural environment) 

“S

outh Dakota’s Keystone pipeline, the controversial structure whose extension triggered the Standing Rock protests, has leaked 200,000 gallons of oil, or about 5,000 barrels.”  Bold Nebraska has documented at least 22 spills on TC Energy’s (formerly TransCanada) original “Keystone 1” pipeline since 2010.  https://boldnebraska.org/bolds-jane-kleeb-statement-on-keystone-pipelines-22nd-spill-on-dec-8th/       #1: May 21, 2010: Keystone pipeline leaks 2 gallons at Carpenter Pump Station in Clark County, South Dakota. Spill is blamed on a “leaking valve body.”

·         #1: May 21, 2010: Keystone pipeline leaks 2 gallons at Carpenter Pump Station in Clark County, South Dakota. Spill is blamed on a “leaking valve body.”

·         #2: June 23, 2010: Keystone pipeline leaks 20 gallons at Roswell Pump Station in North Dakota blamed on “equipment failure.”

·         #3: August 10, 2010: Keystone pipeline leaks 5 gallons near Freeman, South Dakota, “cause unknown.”

·         #4: August 19, 2010: Keystone pipeline leaks 10 gallons near Hartington, Nebraska after “a check valve on a pressure transmitter located on the suction side of a line pump stuck open.”

·         #5: January 5, 2011: Keystone pipeline leaks 10 gallons at a Pump Station near Andover, South Dakota. Spill blamed on “faulty seal.”

·         #6: January 31, 2011: Keystone pipeline leaks 10 gallons at a Pump Station near Turney, Missouri after a “seal on a pump failed.”

·         #7: February 3, 2011: Keystone pipeline leaks 15 gallons “from a vapor separator which caused an overflow” at a Pump Station near Cushing, Oklahoma.

·         #8: February 23, 2011: Keystone pipeline leaks 10 gallons from Rock Pump Station near Udall, Kansas “on a drain valve line possibly due to a leaky fitting.”

·         #9: March 8, 2011: Keystone pipeline leaks 5 gallons from Ludden Pump Station near Brampton, North Dakota “due to equipment failure on a seal on a main pump.”

·         #10: March 16, 2011: Keystone pipeline leaks 126 gallons at Seneca Pump Station in Nemaha County, Kansas, after “a seal on the #4 unit failed releasing crude oil onto the piping, the pump and the ground.”

 

·         #11: May 7, 2011: Keystone pipeline leaks 16,800 gallons (400 barrels) at Ludden Pump Station onto private land in North Dakota. The spill spewed up 60 feet in the air “like a geyser” and was discovered by local rancher smelling it on his land; he’s still dealing with TransCanada over cleanup. The spill was caused by “a threaded connection on small diameter station piping at a 1-inch x 3/4-inch swaged nipple. Respondent performed metallurgical analysis of the nipple and identified the presence of cracks at the root of the thread likely as a result of over-torque during installation. Respondent determined that the cyclic bending stress fatigue due to normal operational vibration propagated the cracks to failure.”

·         #12 May 25, 2011: Keystone pipeline leaks unknown volume at Roswell Pump Station due to a “transmitter fitting leak” that “failed due to cyclical fatigue.” (This spill is only reported in the context of a separate Corrective Action Order related to the May 7th 16,800-gallon Keystone spill where the same cause “cyclical fatigue” was reported.)

·         #13: May 29, 2011: Keystone pipeline leaks 14,000 gallons after “valve failure” at Severance Pump Station in southeastern North Dakota, which saw “a 1/2-inch diameter nipple at the pressure transmitter manifold. Preliminary metallurgical testing provided by the Respondent of this nipple indicates cyclical fatigue.”

·         #14: March 7, 2013: Keystone pipeline leaks 15 gallons near Potwin, Kansas.

June 28, 2011: PHMSA issues Corrective Action Order to TransCanada re: May 7 & May 29 leaks.

·         #15: July 24, 2014: Keystone pipeline leaks 30 gallons in Nederland, Texas.

·         #16: April 2, 2016: Keystone pipeline leaks 16,800 gallons in Hutchinson County, South Dakota, cause found to be a “faulty girth weld,” the point of a transition weld connecting smaller and larger pipe together. TransCanada whistleblower and former company engineer Evan Vokes has repeatedly sounded the alarm about TransCanada’s use of transition welds.

April 2015: A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request made to PHMSA in 2013 returns documents uncovering an alarming rate of corrosion on TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline: “a section of the pipeline’s wall had corroded 95%, leaving it paper-thin in one area (one-third the thickness of a dime) and dangerously thin in three other places.” PHMSA did not disclose a cause for the corrosion at the time, saying it “might impact an ongoing compliance review the agency is conducting of TransCanada.”

·         #17: December 27, 2016: Keystone pipeline spilled 10 gallons at a Pump Station near Tina, Missouri.

May 2016: TransCanada announces plans to “dig up and replace sections of its Keystone pipeline found to not meet federal strength standards.”

April 9, 2016: PHMSA issues Corrective Action Order to TransCanada re: the April 2 spill.

·         #18: November 16, 2017: Keystone pipeline leaks 407,000 gallons on farmland near Amherst, South Dakota. Spill was originally underreported as 210,000 gallons, and was attributed to “the installation of a weight upon its construction in 2008” that is “used to keep pipelines in place and reduce the risk of damage to the line if water levels rise,” but instead “caused mechanical damage to the company’s corrosion-resistant coating, leading to the rupture.”

·         #19: February 20, 2018: Keystone pipeline spills 15 gallons from a Pump Station in Steele City, Nebraska, blamed on “a leaking float control valve.”

November 28, 2017: PHMSA issues Corrective Action Order to TransCanada re: Nov. 17 spill.

·         #20: February 6, 2019: Keystone pipeline spills 1,800 gallons in St. Charles County, Missouri. After metallurgical analysis of the spill’s cause: “The composite wrap was inadequately designed for the metal loss feature it was to protect, as the applicator’s interpretation of the feature as mechanical damage led to fewer wraps than corrosion given the naming convention used in the composite vendor’s software. Feature direct examination concluded blunt metal loss with no evidence of sharp edges or stress concentrators, and the feature root cause analysis determined the accelerated rate of corrosion was primarily caused by stray direct current interference and was subsequently repaired. The RCFA indicated the primary cause of the leak was a through-wall crack that exhibited signs of fatigue, initiated from localized stress concentrations in the irregular pitted surface of the repaired metal loss feature.” Of note: A 2015 investigation in the same county found Keystone pipe there had “suffered from corrosion so severe that it was worn through 95 percent in some places after being in service for less than two years. In one spot, inspectors found the pipeline was down to a metal layer just one third the thickness of a dime.”

·         #21: October 31, 2019: TransCanada’s (“TC Energy”) Keystone pipeline leaked at least 380,000 gallons of tarsands oil and toxic diluents that affected wetlands in northeastern North Dakota. No cause has yet been established.

·         #22: Dec. 7, 2022: TC Energy shut down its Keystone pipeline after detecting a leak of an unknown volume into a creek about 20 miles south of Steele City, NE. “An emergency shutdown and response was initiated at about 9 p.m. CT on Dec. 7 after alarms and a pressure drop in the system, the company said in a release, adding booms were deployed to control downstream migration of the release.”

November 5, 2019: PHMSA issues Corrective Action Order to TransCanada re: Oct. 30 spill.

 
Before the Keystone pipeline began construction in 2010, “TransCanada stated to public, state and federal agencies and elected officials… (risk assessment estimate prepared by ENSR / AECOM): (the pipeline) would spill eleven (11) times over the course of its expected lifetime (approx. 50-100 years).”

A separate independent analysis on “potential risks of spills on the Keystone pipeline” by Professor John Stansbury of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln “concluded that safety assessments provided by TransCanada (were) misleading.” Stansbury projected “‘no fewer than two major spills per state during the 50-year period.’”

News sources and reporting 2011-2022

Bold Nebraska “New Report: Analysis of Frequency and Worst Case Spills for TransCanada Pipeline” by Jane Kleeb July 11, 2011https://boldnebraska.org/water/


National Geographic November 16, 2017 by Sarah Gibbens and Craig Welch “Keystone Pipeline Spills 200,000 Gallons of Oil: Spills were among the major concerns listed by protestors of the pipeline’s controversial XL extension.” “The leaking pipe section ran along a right-of-way 35 miles south of a pumping station in rural Marshall County, South Dakota.” “South Dakota’s Keystone pipeline, the controversial structure whose extension triggered the Standing Rock protests, has leaked 200,000 gallons of oil, or about 5,000 barrels” https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/keystone-oil-spill-south-dakota-spd

“Fracking, tar sands and crude oil pipeline spills, radioactive frack waste, and the associated chemicals being spilled and dumped into our rivers and aquifers have resulted in the largest public health experiment on Earth.” Standing Rock protestor Sarah Jumping Eagle told National Geographic writer Saul Elbein last January.

Government and their paymasters “don’t even follow their own regulations. They just do what they want.” Douglas Yankton, vice-chair of the Spirit Lake Tribe, northeast of Bismarck in neighboring North Dakota

Even if it is not close to water, these projects are damaging the land. “The land is just as sacred as the water,” Yankton said.

Bold Nebraska “Keystone Pipeline Spill History” by Mark Hefflinger News November 7, 2019
https://boldnebraska.org/keystone-pipeline-spill-history/

Miami Herald December 11, 2022 “Federal data: Kansas oil spill biggest in Keystone history” by John Hanna, Ryan J. Foley, and Heather Hollingsworth Associated Press Updated December 11, 2022

Lobbyist for the Sierra Club at the Kansas Statehouse (Zack Pistora): “‘This is going to be months, maybe even years before we get the full handle on this disaster and know the extent of the damage and get it all cleaned up,’”

TOPEKA, KAN. A ruptured pipe dumped enough oil this week into a northeastern Kansas creek to nearly fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, becoming the largest onshore crude pipeline spill in nine years and surpassing all the previous ones on the same pipeline system combined, according to federal data.

“The Keystone pipeline spill in a creek running through rural pastureland in Washington County, Kansas, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northwest of Kansas City, also was the biggest in the system’s history, according to U.S. Department of Transportation data. The operator, Canada-based TC Energy, said the pipeline that runs from Canada to Oklahoma lost about 14,000 barrels, or 588,000 gallons.”

“The nearly 2,700-mile (4345-kilometer) Keystone pipeline carries thick, Canadian tar-sands oil to refineries in Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas, with about 600,000 barrels moving per day from Canada to Cushing, Oklahoma.” https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article269815702.html

Reference
Wikipedia latest update December 10, 2022 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Pipeline

C

RS report on Keystone XL pipeline

Congressional Research Service Report “Keystone XL Pipeline Project: Key Issues” by Paul W. Parfomak Specialist in Energy and Infrastructure Policy, Robert Pirog Specialist in Energy Economics, Linda Luther Analyst in Environmental Policy, Adam Vann Legislative Attorney December 2, 2013

Excerpt

“In light of the State Department’s denial of the 2008 permit application, some in Congress seek other means to support development of the pipeline.”

Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)

Final EIS Issued: “On August 26, 2011, the State Department issued the final EIS for the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline …. 

In October 2011, fourteen Members of Congress wrote to the State Department’s Office of Inspector General requesting an investigation of the department’s handling of the EIS and national interest determination for the Keystone XL project.

“The request was prompted, in part, by press reports suggesting bias or potential conflicts of interest in the State Department’s hiring of an outside contractor to perform the EIS and in its communications with the pipeline’s developer, TransCanada.

“On November 4, the Inspector General’s Office (IG) announced that, in response to this request, it was initiating a special review ‘to determine to what extent the Department and all other parties involved complied with Federal laws and regulations relating to the Keystone XL pipeline permit process.’

“On February 9, 2012, the IG released its findings, reporting that the State Department ‘did not violate its role as an unbiased oversight agency,’ among other specific findings generally supportive of the department’s Keystone XL-permit review process.” https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R41668.pdf

 

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