Tornado Alley (PROG)

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Focus on oil and gas pipelines
Pipeline safety has jumped into the fore of energy conversations in the last year or so, beginning with a large oil spill into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. That spill apparently also occurred when the river was above flood stage levels, though there is no indication that the flood itself caused the spill. There is also an ongoing controversy surrounding the Keystone XL pipeline, a huge project designed to bring tar sands oil south from Alberta to Texas.

"Keystone XL will cross rivers throughout the United States," Casey-Lefkowitz said; this includes the Yellowstone, where the spill cleanup is ongoing. Her organization, the NRDC, has joined many other groups in opposing the pipeline; a final environmental impact statement is expected from the State Department this summer. "Right now TransCanada, the company that has proposed it, is saying that under the Yellowstone river it will be buried twice as deep as the Exxon pipeline was, but that’s not necessarily the case under all the rivers [the pipeline will cross]."

And though high profile spills like that in the Kalamazoo make the news, pipeline incidents have long been common events. The Office of Pipeline Safety – part of the Department of Transportation – has recorded an average of 282 "significant" incidents each year since 1991, with little signs of safety improvement over time. Will energy and pipeline companies take a changing climate into account in the future? For its part, Exxon Mobil -- owners of the Yellowstone River pipeline that ruptured -- isn’t ready to commit.

A spokesperson for Exxon Mobil, Kevin Allexon, told Climate Central in an e-mail that the company is "determined to learn from this so we don't repeat [it]," but refused to answer questions specifically related to climate change, calling them "speculative."

The oil carried by the flood waters at least 100 miles downstream from the Yellowstone spill is real enough, and the increased likelihood of extreme precipitation events as the climate warms suggests it won’t be the last such incident. As Kilpatrick, of the USGS, pointed out, "rivers are powerful things. If you put your infrastructure in the way of it, at some point, at some time, the river is probably going to have an impact on it."

http://www.onearth.org/article/montana-oil-spill-illustrates-climate-related-risks-to-pipelines-experts-say