Oil and gas companies are making old pipelines the landowner’s problem

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In the US, private residents end up footing the bill to prevent further eyesores and pollution from old pipelines. (via NexusMediaNews)

Environmental groups rallied in New York against the Constitution Pipeline.The most comprehensive data on abandoned pipelines comes from Canada. In the 1980s, the Canadian government began an extensive study of abandoned pipelines, which identified a slew of serious risks to leaving them in place. Sinkholes could form as pipelines corroded and collapsed. Leftover fossil fuels, or the cleaning agents used to clear out lines, could leak out into the surrounding soil or water.

“Let’s say a pipeline goes into the ground 60 years ago, and the land was passed down through generations, and by the time it gets to somebody’s great grandkid the story of the pipeline getting put in the ground is lost,” says, the founder of Bold Nebraska, a citizen’s group that fought against the Keystone XL pipeline. “Then the soil starts to erode, as it does everywhere, and then you ruin a tractor because you hit a big piece of pipeline.

that left two dead and one seriously injured. Investigators later discovered the line was still connected to a nearby gas well. Pipeline companies have ample incentive to leave pipelines in the ground. Removal is expensive and requires heavy equipment, permits and environmental reviews. And pipelines laid before 1980 often have the added feature of an asbestos coating that must be dealt with.

 

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What a surprise us government ignoring people in behalf of big corporations

It isn't a problem until it is a problem, and then it is somebody else's problem because our politicians are in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry.

That’s completely wrongful

NexusMediaNews All that infrastructure was put there to serve consumers, why shouldn’t consumers pay for its clean up and upgrades? Consumers are the reason for the production of everything since the beginning of human history. Every human alive is a consumer be it food or energy.

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