plantyhamchuk:

FTA: “Politicians willing to hold oil companies accountable are few and far between. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, a Republican, spoke to TC Energy officials on Thursday night, reportedly asking them to review their line inspection and monitoring practices. It’s a nice gesture, to be sure—but one that needs to be seen in light of Burgum’s other actions. In 2017, Burgum signed a bill into law that allowed companies to skip out on self-reporting spills less than 420 gallons. The same day, he signed a bill establishing a Department of Environmental Quality, officially severing the overseeing process from the state Department of Health.

In the wake of the latest spill, Dave Glatt, appointed head of the new department and a member of Burgum’s cabinet, has similarly asked TC Energy to review their processes. Glatt has even admitted multiple times, most recently in light of a blanketed 2015 gas plant spill, that the public deserves more transparency when it comes to spills. (Glatt, presumably as part of his job, has also spoken at a number of oil-and-gas conferences in the past year.)

What all these seemingly good-faith attempts at preventing future spills ignore is that these same actors have been overseeing the same industry and system since the last major disaster, and the last one, and the one before that. When it comes to pipelines, the simple fact is that it is a matter of when, not if, a series micro-fractures or a loose bolt or a lightning strike will send the pipe’s contents into the ground and potentially into the drinking water or farmland of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of citizens and wildlife. The maps and the data are all widely available to peruse for one’s own horror: As of 2016, the United States was averaging one crude oil spill every other day, or 200 barrels every 24 hours.

In the midst of yet another oil spill, TC Energy spent Monday scooping up a pleasant local news spot for doling out a grant to a glass recycling center while simultaneously announcing a separate $1.2 billion expansion for a natural gas pipeline north of the border and boasting a net earnings of $739 million in the third quarter alone.

This is the shell game as the oil industry intends it to work—keep prying eyes distracted from the truth, minimize the initial bad press, and make verbal gesticulations indicating you are sorry for any harm done. 

By the time the true scope of the issue emerges, you’re already securing your next multi-million dollar, government-backed deal. There is nothing passive or accidental about it.

At the site of the latest spill in North Dakota, TC Energy security guards, not just the state-funded police, were present as soon as the company realized it had a catastrophe on its hands. As reported by the Grand Forks Herald, company security was there to stop and fine anyone who “ignored the closed road signs.” Safety measures, these days, could also be read as a warning to any who dare take a closer look.