Keystone pipeline leak

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I can’t believe that bigger leaks still go undetected. You would think that soon as there is a leak, pressure falls off on receiving end. With the technology out there today and aircraft surveillance of the line, the leak would be addressed pronto. Wth! The natural gas line between shops in our farmyard is wrapped with a detector cable.

Also why are these line failures in N. Dakota? Huh? You would think that the failures would happen where there is ground shifting like earthquake zones and eroding slopes. Not flat, sandy prairie. Wondering....

According to CEPA, corrosion is the biggest factor. If you add metal loss, plus cracking ( which likely includes primarily stress corrosion cracking), corrosion amounts to over half of all failures. Geotechnical being almost insignificant at 7.4%.

Materials and manufacturing is also a big one, but that has more to do with the age of many of these pipelines, and the standards ( or lack thereof) , and oversight back in the day.

And I get what Jazz is implying about the average reader having no sense of scale, and no point of reference. So when the media throws out a number with lots of zeroes, how is the reader to know if that is 100% of all pipeline capacity that day, or a literal and figurative drop in the ocean.

Airplanes fly over once a week locally checking pipelines. And they do notice things, I've been notified when I've been doing excavation in the vicinity (but safely off the right of way) because airplanes reported, and it wasn't on record through first call. But a lot can happen in a week.

[malleefarmer]

My lack of knowledge showing how do they clean it up? Remove a few feet or inches o soil or spray something to break it down?

[makar]

Crude is actually natural to the enviroment, it oozes everywhere and not nice stuff it does break down naturally.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

My lack of knowledge showing how do they clean it up? Remove a few feet or inches o soil or spray something to break it down?

The solution to pollution is dilution. Which basically means they spend absurd amounts of fossil fuels to dilute it down, and bury the remainder in a land fill.

Vacuum up the liquids, send to a recycling facility to salvage the oil, then dispose of the water etc left over down a disposal well.

Dig out the most contaminated soil and haul to a recycling facility, dump it on a pad and stir it up occasionally to get the hydrocarbons to ooze out, and salvage them, then bury the remainder in a sealed landfill.

What is left gets stirred up and aired out until levels are acceptable.

Nature has been hosting oil spills forever, and has been doing a very good job of returning the area to productivity all by herself too. There are bacteria etc that consume the oil.

[walterm]

I always think of the Beverly Hill Billies theme song. Up from the ground came bubbling crude. Or the gas that comes up with some water wells and flowing wells so you can light the water taps.

[furrowtickler]

I wonder if will cost more to clean up this leak or was it more expensive to clean up after those protesters...... remember??? Protectors of mother earth ? Yup they sure care about pollution...


Just posting as reference is all ...

[furrowtickler]

What about the billions of liters of hydrocarbon based pesticides deliberately spread across the world on an annual basis

Don’t worry , farmers are converting to tillage and reducing spraying ......


Fall tillage can be very effective 👍

[AlbertaFarmer5]

What about the billions of liters of hydrocarbon based pesticides deliberately spread across the world on an annual basis

Austranada, what was the point of changing your username if you are just going to post the same things as before?

[TSIPP]

Pretty sure 3 million pounds of oil is easy to clean up compared to 48 million pounds of garbage left on the Indians sacred ground.

[grassfarmer]

I wonder if will cost more to clean up this leak or was it more expensive to clean up after those protesters...... remember??? Protectors of mother earth ? Yup they sure care about pollution...


Just posting as reference is all ...

It was an interesting reference on two fronts. First it debunks the theory that the mainstream media use bigger numbers to inflame outrage and discredit only "right wing" causes. See they used pounds here when they could have used tons and made the problem seem so much smaller.

Interesting too that you used the original story rather than the updated one from a month later when they corrected the math error that had led them to overestimate the amount of garbage substantially. Instead of 48 million pounds they corrected it to 21 million pounds.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/19/garbage-haul-at-dakota-access-camps-revised-downwa/ http://https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/19/garbage-haul-at-dakota-access-camps-revised-downwa/