Keystone Pipeline Ruptures into Kansas Creek

Earlier this week, a pipe ruptured, spilling oil into a northeastern Kansas creek. The pipe was the Keystone pipeline and according to CNBC, spilled enough oil into a Kansas Creek to fill an “Olympic-sized swimming pool.”

The Keystone pipeline spilled in a creek that runs through “rural pasture land in Washington County, Kansas, for 150 miles.” The U.S. Department of Transportation data reported that this spill is the biggest in the “systems history,” where the pipeline lost around “14,000 barrels, or 588,000 gallons” of oil. WIth this spill, many environmentalists are questioning whether or not the operator, Canadian based TC Energy, should “keep the federal gov. permit that allows the pressure inside parts of its Keystone system — including the stretch through Kansas — to exceed the typical maximum permitted levels.” This spill is the 23rd reported spill that has occurred since the Keystone pipeline began operating in 2010. Both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and TC Energy reported recently that the spill has “been contained,” and according to CNBC, the EPA said they “built an earthen dam across the creek about 4 miles downstream from the pipeline rupture to prevent the oil from moving into larger waterways.”