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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Opinion

Protect aquifer from pipeline leak

Bart Haggin Special to The Spokesman-Review

The Spokane River and the Yellowstone River have something in common: They both have oil pipelines running beneath them. The Yellowstone has only one, the Spokane River has two.

About 1,000 barrels of crude oil, equal to 42,000 gallons, recently poured into the Yellowstone in a spill caused by a broken pipeline.

Owner ExxonMobil Corp. claims that the pipeline was at least six feet below the bottom of the streambed. They are at a loss as to how it could have broken. But why did so much oil get into the river?

The pipelines crossing the Spokane River also cross the Spokane Valley/Rathdrum Prairie aquifer. The bigger one, which is run by the ConocoPhillips Corp., comes from Montana and is called The Yellowstone Pipeline. It carries refined product (grades of gas, jet fuel, diesel and fuel oil) to Spokane and, in a reduced size, on to Fairchild Air Force Base and Moses Lake. A smaller pipeline owned by Chevron carries refined products up from Salt Lake City.

Local communities and governments have no control over the running or servicing of these pipelines. But then the nation has been all through that lately with the BP oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. And the corporations seem to have an extraordinary amount of control over the federal government agencies involved.

The crude oil spilled in Montana was headed to a Billings refinery, which is where the Yellowstone pipeline comes from. Actually it is not a complete pipeline. It was once. It crossed the reservation of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation at one time. It developed a slow leak and poured about 10,000 gallons of jet fuel into a creek on the tribal land. When the lease on the easement was up, the tribe refused to renew it. Alternative routes were explored but the corporation was thwarted in its attempts. Even the United States government turned them down. Now, the Yellowstone Pipeline goes to Missoula. The oil is loaded into tank cars and transported to Thompson Falls by Montana Rail Link and then put back in the pipeline.

The question that must be asked is: Can something happen in the Spokane area and under the river that would be comparable to the situation in Montana?

The short answer is yes. No pipeline is above leaking oil, and there is always a chance of system failure. But what are the safety factors that guard against disaster and that minimize risk?

These pipelines are carefully monitored and they are divided up into segments with pumps to keep the oil flowing. If sensors detect something wrong, the pumps are stopped by remote control and a valve closes. But some oil leaks, as it did on the Yellowstone. How much will be determined by how soon the pumps are stopped and how big the leak is.

The point is that pipeline safety is not perfect and how a pipeline is constructed is going to be a major factor in prevention. It appears that the ExxonMobil pipeline didn’t have pressure-sensitive valves, and the remote controls are in Houston.

We can envision the horror of the Spokane River full of the colors of oil but a break, underground, over our aquifer is beyond imagining. The contamination of our drinking water and our river would be the result. How long would it be before it would be safe to drink from the tap?

The point of all this is to get all the responsible parties together to make sure all possible measures are taken to protect Spokane’s No. 1 asset. Awareness is where it has to start. Those two 50-year-old pipelines won’t wait.

Bart Haggin, a retired teacher and one-time congressional candidate, is a longtime civic and environmental activist in the region.