Environmentalists to demonstrate this week against oil pipeline through Mobile County

MOBILE, Alabama?-- Environmentalists and other concerned citizens are planning a lively week of demonstrations and organizing as they prepare an uphill fight in preventing an oil pipeline running 41 miles to Mississippi and through a section of Mobile's drinking water supply.

Through Facebook and other social media, local environmentalists are organizing an eventful start to the work week. The first plan is for them to be at Monday's Mobile Area Water and Sewer System meeting. An even larger group will likely be at a 9 a.m. Tuesday demonstration at Government Plaza, which takes place while the Mobile County Commissioners and the City Council are simultaneously present.

"The citizens are interested," said Thomas Hutchings of EcoSolutions Inc., an ecosystems consulting firm. "They are concerned as well they should be. Drinking water is personal. It really is."

A citizen's coalition will present the Mobile City Council during its 10:30 a.m. meeting Tuesday with a resolution calling on elected officials to "protect the health, safety, and economic well-being of local citizens" as well as the city's drinking water supply from the "potential impact of tar sands oil."

An organizational meeting, asking Mobilians to "wake up," will take place at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Corpus Christi Catholic Church at 6300 McKenna Drive. The coalition is asking people to share their skills in addressing issues pertaining to new pipelines, rail cars, tank farms, and other concerns.

The efforts, organizers say, is to get the public involved and to make sure local officials understand their concerns, even if there is little that can be done in the short-term to prevent the pipeline from moving ahead.

The status quo remains on a 2-foot-wide Gulf Coast pipeline, which will carry crude oil, from the Ten-Mile facility located 11 miles northwest of downtown Mobile toward a Chevron refinery in Pascagoula, Miss.

Construction is currently stalled near Hamilton Creek, a stream that runs into Big Creek Lake -- site of the city's largest drinking water supply.

Plains Southcap, a subsidiary of Plains All-American Pipeline of Houston, wants to align the pipeline's construction through the watershed, though MAWSS has not granted an easement allowing them access to 3,120 feet of the watershed its owns.

Plains, meanwhile, has either negotiated or utilized eminent domain to obtain private property in order to build the pipeline. No eminent domain case has been filed against MAWSS, and a spokeswoman with the water utility said they are currently in negotiations with Plains.

"The important thing is we keep the dialogue going," MAWSS spokeswoman Barbara Shaw said.

The process is also on hold until a safety study, commissioned by MAWSS but which will be reimbursed by Plains, is completed. The study, which is being performed by Kellogg, Brown and Root, will examine the project's safety.

Environmentalists are skeptical the study will reveal much, largely because Plains is paying for the analysis.

Some remain convinced that while crude oil will be pumped through the pipeline initially, Canadian tar sands oil -- which will be eventually transported via rail to the Mobile River, where it will be pumped to Arc Terminals on Blakley Island -- will ultimately be transported through the watershed.

Tar sands are heavier oil than crude, and are viewed as a higher environmental concern if spilled into the watershed. Plains All-American has since said that tar sands will not be pumped to Chevron.

The company is also touting its safety of the pipeline, noting that it will have shut-off valves, will be monitored for leaks and will be constructed of heavy concrete, among other things.

"Pipelines remain the safest way to transport crude oil and are vital to our nation's energy infrastructure," Brad Leone, spokesman with Plains All-American, said. "A barrel of petroleum product has a 99.9995 percent chance of reaching its destination safely by pipeline."

Concerns elsewhere

But recent oil spills have heightened concerns among local environmental groups who view the regulation of pipelines as loose and the Plains Southcap projects as anything but transparent.

The most notable, a July 2010 spill into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, involved Bitumen, heavy oil from Canada's tar sands region. A broken pipeline caused the bitumen to sink into the riverbed, resulting in the first spill of the substance into a U.S. waterway.

Enbridge, Canada's largest transporter of crude oil was fined a record $3.7 million for the 2010 spill by the U.S. Department of Transportation and the National Transportation Safety Board accused the company of a "complete breakdown of safety." The EPA is conducting a separate investigation of the accident.

Charles Hyland, director with MAWSS, told the Mobile City Council last week that the utility will examine a spill earlier this year in Mayflower, Ark., which occurred a few miles from a watershed that provides drinking water to 400,000 people living in central Arkansas.

ExxonMobil is blaming "manufacturing defects" on the March 29 pipeline rupture that led to thousands of gallons of oil spilled into a Mayflower neighborhood. The spill occurred from the same 65-year-old pipe that runs through the watershed, prompting Central Arkansas Water to look for ways to have it removed.

"Central Arkansas Water doesn't have the authority to relocate the pipeline, but we are committed to being part of the dialogue and discussion on what needs to occur and to be a part of that," John Tynan, watershed protection manager said.

To complicate matters, Central Arkansas Water isn't sure what type of oil is running through the pipeline.

Whenever ExxonMobil provides information, the answers vary between Bitumen and conventional crude oil.

"These sorts of pipelines are not necessarily (running) a constant type of product," Tynan said.

That's what has environmental watch dogs concerned in Mobile. While Chevron has told other media outlets it will only receive crude oil from the Plains Southcap pipeline, others fear that someday -- years from now -- heavier substances will flow through it.

"The Canadian government is trying to sell and get rid of this (oil)," Dr. Ralph Pfeiffer, a local physician who will speak before the City Council on Tuesday. "They are going to ship it to Pascagoula. It's the most toxic form of oil you can find."

A Chevron spokesman did not return a call for comment, but Leone said the safety problems that occur elsewhere won't be present with the Gulf Coast pipeline.

"Different companies have different practices for their construction, maintenance and operation of pipelines," Leone said. "Plains reaffirms that we are committed to designing, constructing, operating and maintaining the Gulf Coast pipeline in a safe and prudent manner."

He said the Gulf Coast pipeline will be designed to exceed government standards.

Politicians react

Meanwhile, the blame game has subsided somewhat in recent weeks after local officials accused the state for failure to notify Mobile about the pipeline, while the Alabama Public Service Commission said it did what it was legally required to do.

The process, however, could become a state legislative issue soon.

State Sen. Rusty Glover, R-Semmes, said he wants to make sure there is sufficient dialogue in the future before permits are issued by the PSC. The PSC, before issuing its permit for the pipeline, held a public meeting in Montgomery that was only advertised in the public notices section of the Press-Register.

"I would think they would need to have the meetings in Mobile," Glover, who first learned about the pipeline during a local TV news report, said. "It is maybe something we need to look at to see what we can do to make changes and make sure people in affected areas get a voice."

State Rep. Jamie Ison, R-Mobile, said the Legislature should look and see if there are gaps in the protection of the watershed. She said the PSC, which has a narrow scope of determining whether the project "furthers industrial development."

Ison said it would also be helpful with the Mobile County Commissioners -- which approved right-of-way permits for the project to move forward, with little knowledge about the extent of the pipeline's intrusion into the watershed --?requested a state agency examine the impact of projects on water supplies.

"Certainly we'd be very responsive as a delegation if the county commissioners said in the future that it would be helpful for a state entity to evaluate impacts of projects to our water supply," Ison said, adding that the Alabama Department of Environmental Management would be the first agency responsible for that work.

Oil concerns

In Mobile, though, the progress of the pipeline has people concerned about the oil industry that already exists, and the pipeline's construction.

For one, some environmentalists believe tar sands are already transported to Mobile aboard rail by the Canadian National Railway. A U.S. spokesman with the railway said there were 30,000 car loads of crude oil transported to various sites in North American during 2012, but did not confirm whether any of it was tar sands.

Also last week, environmentalists raised doubts about whether there was a legitimate oil spill at Arc Terminals on Blakley Island.

The incident on Wednesday, July 17, was ruled a "hoax," by Judy Adams, spokeswoman of the Alabama State Port Authority, after spotters saw nothing on the water and no activity along the banks.

But some public spotters said representatives with an oil recovery team were on site cleaning up what appeared to be a spill.

"They self-report it," Hutchings said. "It's not hoaxes. Every time you transfer (oil) there is a chance for a spill."

Adams said that had a spill occurred, by federal law, the company would have to alert the National Incident Response Center in Washington, D.C., which would then alert the U.S. Coast Guard. The process normally takes "minutes," Adams said, and no such alert was issued.

Also last week, Semmes Mayor Judy Hale sent out an email informing the public that work crews spotted near the pipeline sight were working on reinforcing a fence, and not working on the pipeline.

Plains Southcap still needs to obtain land disturbance permits from Semmes to work within the city's boundaries. There is currently stop work orders issued on the pipeline work within Semmes, Hale said.

"We are currently in touch with the company and working with them to identify all of the specific parcels and providing them with information on the requirements for these permits," she said.

Hutchings and others, though, are distrustful of an industry that has caused plenty of headaches in recent years, and are not confident much is being done to thwart the pipeline's construction.

Three years removed from the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Hutchings said the Plains Southcap project ? and the prospect of tar sands oil shipped into Mobile -- is enough to begin public demonstrations that will occur starting this week.

"It's time to wake up our fellow citizens in our community to let them know what's going on," Hutchings said.

Source: http://blog.al.com/live/2013/07/the_fight_against_oil_environm.html

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