In Tiny Blue Ridge, Texas, Oil Spill Is Cautionary Tale Against Dakota Access Pipeline

BLUE RIDGE, TX — A recent oil spill in Northeast Texas that largely escaped media notice has given new fodder to opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline, given new life by President Trump via executive order approving its construction.

On Jan. 30, an estimated 600,000 gallons, or 14,285 barrels' worth, of oil spewed out of Enbridge’s Seaway Pipeline in Blue Ridge, Texas, according to Desmog, a website devoted to climate science issues. The rupture is the second spill since the pipeline opened for business in mid-2016, according to Desmog.

So how does this relate to the controversial Dakota Access pipeline?

"Seaway is half owned by Enbridge and serves as the final leg of a pipeline system DeSmogBlog has called the 'Keystone XLClone,' which carries mostly tar sands extracted from Alberta, Canada, across the U.S. at a rate of 400,000 barrels per day down to the Gulf of Mexico," Desmog reports.

Moreover, Enbridge is an equity co-owner of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which received its final permit needed from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Feb. 7 to construct the pipeline across the Missouri River, and construction has resumed, the climate science news site reported.

The Dakota Access Pipeline, or Bakken pipeline, is a 1,172-mile-long (1,886 km) underground oil pipeline project in the United States. The route begins in the Bakken shale oil fields in northwest North Dakota and travels in a more or less straight line southeast, through South Dakota and Iowa, terminating at the oil tank farm near Patoka, Illinois.

Plans for the Dakota Access Pipeline opened the floodgates of protest, particularly among indigenous people in the area decrying the desecration of sacred lands that would occur with its construction. After months of review and protests, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rejected an easement application needed by Houston-based Energy Transfer Partners to cross under the Missouri River and complete the pipeline through four states, as the Seattle Times reported at the time.

Native Americans rejoiced in what they described as a "historic victory." But then Trump secured the presidency, and his surrogates telegraphed his plans to renew the project. Speaking to CBS News in November, Energy Transfer Partners chairman Kelcy Warren said that it would be "100 percent that the easement gets granted and the pipeline gets built" when Trump took office Jan. 20. Four days after being inaugurated, Trump made good on his pledge, signing an executive order on Jan. 24 to advance the pipeline's construction. The order would serve to expedite environmental review Trump described as an "incredibly cumbersome, long, horrible permitting process."

On Feb. 7, the Corps of Engineers granted the final required easement under Lake Oahe, allowing the pipeline to be completed.

Back to Texas.

Blue Ridge is a tiny town 50 miles from Dallas, with a total area of 1.12 square miles — all of it land — with a population of just more than 800 people. Not exactly a metropolis, the city's diminutive size may have contributed to not showing up on the radar of news outlets that had reported extensively on the bigger Dakota Access Pipeline.

But for those in the midst of the under-reported oil spill, the rupture was not insignificant. Brittany Clayton, who works at a nearby gas station, was close to the scene of the spill when it occurred, the climate science site reported.

“You could just smell this oil smell," he told KDFW-TV, the local Fox News affiliate for the area. “It was just super huge. It was like a big cloud. The fire marshal said, 'This is like a danger zone. You guys have to evacuate immediately.’ I was totally freaked out. I kept texting the boss man.”

In a press release, Enbridge and co-owner Enterprise Products Partners assured the spill had been contained and it resumed service on Feb. 5: “The incident … resulted in no fire or injuries and the pipeline has been shut down and isolated,” the companies said. “Seaway has mobilized personnel and equipment to the site and is working closely with emergency responders, law enforcement and regulatory authorities to conduct clean-up operations and develop a plan to resume operations as quickly and safely as possible.”

According to KDFW, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency planned to conduct water and environmental testing in the coming days. TxDOT also told the local National Public Radio affiliate, KETR-FM, that it would take “several weeks” to complete a full cleanup.

For now, the true toll of the Texas spill is unknown. “It remains too early in the investigation to know where final blame lies for the accident,” KETR reported while noting that “it is also too early to tell how much the cleanup and loss of product will cost."

Once the media catch up on this under-reported oil spill, however, it might unleash a geyser of renewed concern over construction of its larger cousin, the Dakota Access Pipeline. And the little town of Blue Ridge tucked away in remote Collin County might very well emerge as a focal point of a national environmental debate.

>>> Read the full story at Desmog

Image: Aftermath of the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, taken or made as part of an employee's official duties, via WikiMedia Commons