TagPegasus pipeline

Leaking pipelines or exploding rail cars — choose your Big Oil poison

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There’s one thing that’s clear — when it comes to North America’s recent oil and gas boom, there’s no way that the average citizen can win. That’s especially true when it comes to the critical issue of how to transport those millions of barrels of oil and natural gas that are now being produced from the Canadian tar sands, from underneath the North Dakota...

As pipeline spills get worse, regulators are in bed with Big Oil

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The website Midwest Energy News asks a very good question: When a ruptured pipeline spilled 20,000 barrels of oil into a North Dakota wheat field last month, a state health official said it was “the best place it could’ve occurred” — far from population centers and water supplies. But what if a similar spill occurs in the worst place? For better or worse, the year 2013 will be remembered as the...

Feds turn to YouTube to beg for safer pipelines

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When it comes to the future of oil and gas pipelines in America, we seem to be talking past one another. With production of North American oil and natural gas skyrocketing, thanks to unconventional techniques such as fracking as well as exploitation of Canadian tar sands, Big Oil needs ways to get all that product to market. That’s led to increased use of rail — and also more rail...

Victims of last pipeline disaster forgotten as North America races to build new ones

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What does it take to get people’s attention these days? How about blowing up a cornfield in rural Illinois and sending bright orange flames shooting 300 feet into the prairie sky? Folks who live for miles around the small town of Erie, Ill., were treated to that unexpected nighttime fireworks show this past Monday night, courtesy of a Texas company with the bland name of Enterprise Products...

Tragedy in Quebec and the consequences of oil addiction

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There was a new environmental tragedy this weekend — and it came with a twist. A train that was hauling tanker cars laden with oil produced in the booming Bakken fields in North Dakota and bound for refineries in Eastern Canada broke loose and crashed into a small town in Quebec near its border with Maine, unleashing an ungoldy amount of death and destruction: LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec (AP)...

Arkansas spill is like Deepwater Horizon on land

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A large global oil company ignores basic safety protocols, and a major accident ensues. From practically the first news report, this icon of Big Oil works to downplay the extent of the spill and to minimize the risk to citizens — often despite clear visual evidence to the contrary. And government regulators bend over backwards to represent the...

ExxonMobil nightmare grows as Ark. residents report illnesses

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 It just keeps on getting worse for ExxonMobil and its major oil pipeline spill in Mayflower, Ark.  This week, officials were bracing for a major storm that threatened to send more of the spilled oil from the Canadian tar sands into nearby Lake Conway — a major, environmentally sensitive waterway: Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel says he’s concerned about the effect heavy...

When the pipeline breaks

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There’ve been multiple reports over the last couple of days about officials in Arkansas restricting access — apparently upon orders from top officials at ExxonMobil — to news helicopters and other media photographers seeking to capture the full extent of the Pegasus pipeline spill  in Arkansas. Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made it clear why the oil giant...

Stuart H. Smith is an attorney based in New Orleans fighting major oil companies and other polluters.
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