Like a lot of guys my age, I have a hearing problem: in a
loud environment, the noise in the background overwhelms what someone is saying
directly to me in the foreground.
Sometimes, in the news world, the problem is exactly the
opposite: the story of the day hides the much bigger story lurking in the
background.
That certainly seems to be the case in an Associated Press story in Saturday’s papers out
of Bismarck, North Dakota. The lead is simple
and big enough: “When a
pipeline rupture sent more than 20,000 barrels of crude spewing across a North
Dakota wheat field, it took nearly two weeks for officials to tell the public
about it.”
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/11/3683987/nd-farmer-finds-oil-spill-while.html
In case you’re wondering, 20,600 barrels of crude is enough
to cover 7 football fields. That’s quite
a lot of gunk, but there is no evidence to suggest that Tesoro Corp., which
owns the pipeline involved even noticed.
If they did (and there is no evidence that anyone has asked them when they did become aware), they didn’t mention it to anyone. Then a farmer running his combine across a
field near the town of Tioga noticed its tires were coated in crude. He called authorities at the North Dakota
Health Department who came, saw, and kept it quiet.
The Health Department’s excuses? The usual: they thought the spill was small;
it was in a remote area; and they say (on the basis of what is left unclear)
that no water was contaminated and no wildlife adversely affected. Hey, what’s a 7.3 acre puddle of crude oil
among friends?
In fact, once they had established the scale of the spill, (it’s
one of the largest in the state’s history) they gave no notice to the public,
or it seems, ND Gov. Jack Dalrymple.
Silence ruled until the Associated Press asked the Health Department
about it directly.
“It shows an
attitude of our current state government and what they think of the
public," Don Morrison, executive director of the Dakota Resource Council, told
the AP. "It's definitely worrisome.
There is a pattern in current state government to not involve the public."
Aha! Now, we’re getting closer to the big story
here: official cover-ups of oil spills in big oil states are commonplace, and
THERE'S NOTHING ILLEGAL ABOUT IT!
As AP notes near
the bottom of its report: “Kris Roberts, an environmental geologist with the North
Dakota Health Department, said that while companies must notify the state of
any spills, the state doesn't have to release that information to the public.
That's not unusual in major oil-producing states: Alaska, Oklahoma and Texas
also do not require the government to publicly report spills.
BINGO!
That
arrangement is just fine with Roberts, who told AP: “"We deal with a spill
and make sure it's cleaned up. We don't issue press
releases." But “we” did, Roberts
told AP, “work with Tesoro in crafting a company news release,” congratulating
everyone concerned for what are called “proactive response efforts."
Brian Kalk, chairman of the North Dakota Public Service Commission, told AP there was nothing proactive about the pipeline company or the Health Department’s efforts to notify him. He learned about the spill when the public did, 11 days after the Health Department knew, and even longer after the pipeline started leaking crude.
"There is almost a million gallons of product on the ground,” Kalk said, “and we need to find out what happened. "
As far as federal involvement, the Environmental Protection Agency was notified of the spill but has no jurisdiction because water sources weren't affected, Roberts said. Officials from the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration were on site last week, he said, but AP notes, “Efforts to reach the agency Friday were not successful due to the federal government shutdown.” Anybody wanna bet on how many Feds have actually checked for Pipeline or Hazmat Safety at the scene? Yeah, who needs a government anyway?
Meanwhile, in
farmer Steve Jensen's wheat field, work was continuing, and will last,
according to the Health Department, from "a couple of months to a couple
of years."
Jensen says his
wheat field looks like "an excavation war zone," and is ruined for
farming for the next few years.
Which would seem
to indicate that the crude will be sitting out in farmer Jensen's field for a while, making those
assurances that neither land nor groundwater nor wildlife were damaged seem a bit premature,
if not outright bull-spill. Says the Dakota Resource Council's Morrison, "When seven acres of agricultural land is affected and
they say there was no environmental impact, it defies common sense and
logic."
While Wayde Schafer, a North Dakota spokesman for the Sierra Club told AP, "Obviously,
if you have an oil spill, some species of wildlife are going to be impacted."
Another
impact of a spill might be on citizens asked to vote to approve
oil pipelines across their states, or at least to vote for politicians who vote
yea or nay on, say, the Keystone Pipeline Project. When spills are legally covered up, as they
presently can be in such Keystone-crossing states as Texas, Oklahoma, and North
Dakota, those votes are taken in ignorance. Just the way pipeline companies and oil state
office-holders seem to like it.
