Tag: Kansas

Regulators order Keystone Pipeline to investigate after 14,000 barrels spill in Kansas

The spill is the largest since the pipeline started operating in 2010

by Allison Kite, Kansas Reflector

Kansas City, Missouri — Federal regulators have ordered operators to temporarily shut down part of the Keystone Pipeline in northern Kansas after it spilled 14,000 barrels of crude oil.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issued a corrective action order, its strictest enforcement, Thursday evening. It orders the pipeline’s operators to conduct an investigation before they can resume operations.

In a statement Friday, TC Energy, which owns the 2,687-mile Keystone Pipeline, said it had been working closely with regulators, local officials, landowners, tribal nations and the community at-large.

“Over the last several years, we have taken decisive action to implement measures to strengthen our approach to safety and the integrity of our system and will conduct a full investigation into the root cause of this incident in cooperation with regulators,” the statement says.

The company said it had deployed additional staff and remediation crews, contained the spill and begun cleaning it up, started planning repairs and deployed air monitoring.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on Twitter the department is “monitoring and investigating” the leak.

The Keystone Pipeline carries crude oil from Canada to Texas. Since it began operations in 2010, it has spilled more than 20 times, often small amounts. At 14,000 barrels — or more than 580,000 gallons — Wednesday’s spill is larger than all its previous ones combined.

The spill occurred close to Washington, Kansas, near the Nebraska border, dumping oil into Mill Creek. Environmental Protection Agency coordinators were dispatched to the scene Thursday along with state and local crews. TC Energy said in a news release Thursday evening that the segment of Mill Creek where the oil spilled had been isolated to prevent it from flowing downstream.

“Our primary focus right now is the health and safety of onsite staff and personnel, the surrounding community, and mitigating risk to the environment,” the company said in a statement, adding that its “efforts will continue until we have fully remediated the site.”

The EPA said Friday the oil was contained within three miles of the pipeline burst and no drinking water had been impacted.

Zack Pistora, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club in Kansas, said it was a “shame that this has happened once again on the Keystone Pipeline.”

“It’s a shame because Mill Creek will probably never be the same,” Pistora said.

The corrective action order says TC Energy must determine the root cause of the failure that caused the oil spill Wednesday, review 10 years of inspections and create a remedial work plan that assesses the risk of spills at other points along the pipeline.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2022/12/09/regulators-order-keystone-pipeline-to-investigate-after-14000-barrels-spill-in-kansas/

Keystone Pipeline shut down after leak into Kansas stream on Wednesday

by Paul Hammel, Kansas Reflector

Lincoln, Nebraska — Canadian pipeline company TC Energy shut down its Keystone Pipeline on Wednesday after an oil leak was detected about 8 p.m.

The leak released oil into a creek in Washington County, Kansas, about 20 miles south of a pipeline terminal at Steele City, Nebraska.

The company, in a statement, said an emergency shutdown was done after a pressure drop was detected in the pipeline, which traverses eastern Nebraska and delivers oil from Alberta’s tar sands region to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast and in southern Illinois.

There was no immediate word on how much oil was leaked. TC Energy said containment booms were deployed to control downstream migration of the release.

As of Thursday morning, the system remained shut down as crews worked to contain and recover the oil.

“We are proceeding to make appropriate notifications, including to our customers and regulators and will work cooperatively with third parties to effectively respond to this incident,” the company said.

The Keystone pipeline segment across Nebraska has been operating since 2010.

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline, a larger, 36-inch pipeline project by TC Energy, sparked a controversy pitting environmentalists, who argued that the tar sand oil would increase climate warming, against energy interests, who maintained it made sense to get energy from a friendly neighbor.

Then President Barack Obama denied a permit for the XL project in 2015, but it was resurrected by President Donald Trump when he took over in the White House in 2017.

President Joe Biden, shortly after he took office in 2021, reversed course, and TC Energy eventually abandoned the project after approximately 8% of the project, from Alberta to Steele City, had been built.

This story was produced by Nebraska Examiner, an affiliate of States Newsroom. Follow Nebraska Examiner on Facebook and Twitter.

Kansas Reflector stories, kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
See more at https://kansasreflector.com/briefs/keystone-pipeline-shut-down-after-leak-into-kansas-stream-on-wednesday/

Biden chooses former Jackson County prosecutor to head U.S. Attorney’s office in Kansas

Kate E. Brubacher was part of a team that fought for the exoneration of Kevin Strickland, who spent 43 years in prison for a triple murder he didn’t commit. Strickland was exonerated in late 2021.

by Dan Margolies, KCUR and Kansas News Service

President Joe Biden’s pick to be the next U.S. Attorney in Kansas is a former assistant Jackson County, Missouri, prosecutor who last year helped free a man wrongly convicted of murder.

Kate E. Brubacher, a native of North Newton, Kansas, comes from a Mennonite farming background. She served in the Jackson County Prosecutor’s office from 2016 until August of this year. She has extensive experience in private practice and a graduate degree in religion from Yale Divinity School.

In 2016, she oversaw a program to stem violent crime in Kansas City, Missouri’s urban core. The program focused on the East Patrol Division, the most violent part of the city.

She was part of a team of Jackson County prosecutors who fought for the exoneration of Kevin Strickland, who spent 43 years in prison for a triple murder he didn’t commit. Strickland was exonerated in late 2021.

Reached at her Kansas City area home, Brubacher said she was “honored to be nominated and am looking forward to the confirmation process.” She declined to say more.

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said Brubacher was one of the most accomplished attorneys in her office, with stellar skills as a legal researcher and writer. She said Brubacher did much of the briefing in the Strickland case and was instrumental in his exoneration.

“I will tell you in all earnestness that she is one of the best lawyers that I’ve met, to come through this office,” Baker said.

Baker said that Brubacher handled a wide variety of cases, ranging from property crimes to murder.

Brubacher received her undergraduate degree in philosophy and religious studies as well as a master’s degree from Stanford University in 2003. She received her law degree from Yale Law School in 2010 and her M.A.R. (Master of Arts in Religion) in ethics from Yale Divinity School in 2007.

Before joining the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office, she was a lawyer with Cravath Swain and Moore in New York and Cooley LLP in New York, both prominent corporate law firms.

In law school, she was a founding director of the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project (now the International Refugee Assistance Project) and an editor on the Yale Journal of International Law.

Before law school, she lived in Ghana and, through the Mennonite Mission Network, co-founded the Liberian Widows Initiative, which provided small business loans to Liberian women in the aftermath of the civil war in that country.

Brubacher is married and has three children. She serves on the board of Bethel College in North Newton. The college is affiliated with the Mennonite Church.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Kansas has been headed by Acting U.S. Attorney Duston J. Slinkard, a career prosecutor, since Stephen McAllister resigned as U.S. Attorney in February 2021. McAllister stepped down along with all 92 other U.S. Attorneys in the country, which is customary when a new president takes office. U.S. Attorneys serve at the president’s discretion and must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Kansas has about 50 prosecutors and 50 support staff at offices in Kansas City, Kansas, Topeka and Wichita. U.S. Attorneys are the chief federal law enforcement officers in their districts and also handle civil litigation in which the United States is a party.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Kansas has a rich history. One former U.S. Attorney, Cyrus Schofield, left in the 1870s under a legal cloud after he was accused of taking bribes from railroads.

In 1916, U.S. Attorney Fred Robertson prosecuted Robert Stroud, the “Birdman of Alcatraz,” for murdering a federal prison guard. Another head of the office, Newell “Punk” George, managed a string of boxers on the side in the 1960s.

The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy. Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished by news media at no cost with proper attribution and a link to ksnewsservice.org.

See more at https://www.kmuw.org/2022-11-29/biden-chooses-former-jackson-county-prosecutor-to-head-u-s-attorneys-office-in-kansas