I think this is good cause for companies to dig up old pipeline and replace with brand new Maverick pipeline.
"Friday January 15, 11:21 pm Eastern Time
Pipeline hole blamed for Alaska refuge oil spill
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Jan 15 (Reuters) - State officials on Friday blamed a small hole in a pipeline, apparently caused by
internal corrosion, for causing a leak that has spilled crude oil and oily water in Alaska's Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.
Investigators found the hole, measuring about three-eighths of an inch (a centimeter) in diameter, after they excavated a section of pipeline on Thursday, the Alaska
Department of Environmental Conservation said on Friday.
State officials said last week's initial estimate of the size of the spill -- 60 barrels (2,520 gallons) of crude oil and 1,300 barrels (54,600 gallons) of contaminated
water -- probably was too low.
The nature of the leak and the amount of oil being collected off the ground by cleanup workers suggested that the spill was larger than the initial estimate, said Brad
Hahn, a supervisor with the department's Division of Spill Prevention and Response.
The leak developed, apparently because of corrosion, in an aging pipeline carrying oil from the Unocal (NYSE:UCL - news)-operated Swanson River field on the
Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage, officials said. The pipeline, six inches (15 cm) in diameter, was about three decades old, they said.
Most of the spilled oil was situated on the right-of-way that surrounds the pipeline where it cuts through the wildlife refuge.
A recreational snowmobiler discovered the spill on Jan. 6. So far there have been no signs of ill effects on wildlife, Hahn said.
Officials have said that the spill's timing -- in winter, when the ground is frozen, snowpack is present and wildlife is in hibernation or otherwise scarce -- has aided
cleanup efforts and reduced the potential for ecological damage.
Unocal officials at first thought the leak came from a quick rupture of the pipeline, Hahn said. The company's initial estimate of the spill size was based on a day's
oil-production volume, he said.
Now officials said they believe the spill was the result of an old, slow leak, Hahn said.
''To cause this amount of oil to leak out, it had to be there for some time,'' he said." |
