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pipeline and hazardous materials safety administration
Greenpeace Says Latest Keystone Pipeline Spill Shows Why Big Oil Targets Climate Activists
"Oil companies know that protest works," said Greenpeace USA's leader.
Apr 11, 2025
With cleanup efforts still underway in rural North Dakota on Friday after yet another Keystone crude oil pipeline spill, Greenpeace USA interim executive director Sushma Raman said that the incident "shows exactly why we need to protect protest, free speech, and the right to speak up against harm."
Keystone ruptured on Tuesday, spilling an estimated 3,500 barrels of oil into an agricultural field, according to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). That came just weeks after a North Dakota jury awarded Energy Transfer and its subsidiary more than $660 million in a case targeting Greenpeace for protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
"We know fossil fuels are unhealthy at every stage of their life cycle. There is no fail-safe way to transport oil and gas, and the risks unfairly fall on the people who live near the route, while the company reaps the benefits," Raman said in a Friday statement. "Everyday people, public watchdogs, and advocacy groups have a right to raise their voices and criticize a corporation when their health and livelihoods are on the line."
"Yet this type of ordinary advocacy is exactly what is under attack in the more than $660 million jury verdict against Greenpeace entities in a lawsuit brought by pipeline company Energy Transfer," added Raman, whose group is appealing the March decision. "Oil companies know that protest works—which is why they're trying to make the stakes so high no one will be willing to take the risk."
"There is no fail-safe way to transport oil and gas, and the risks unfairly fall on the people who live near the route, while the company reaps the benefits."
Environmentalist David Suzuki and co-writer Ian Hanington similarly wrote last week that while Greenpeace argues that it assisted with the protests against Dakota Access "at the request of the Standing Rock Sioux, the environmental group is clearly seen as a threat to oil and gas interests and is a high-profile target for increasingly common efforts to silence opposition."
"From Standing Rock to Wet'suwet'en territory in British Columbia and beyond, militarized law enforcement agencies are relying more often on use of force against land and water defenders, and companies are resorting to tactics such as SLAPPs ("strategic lawsuits against public participation" designed to silence opponents through costly, time-consuming legal processes)," they noted. "Those working to protect land, air, water, plants and animals, and our future face an increasingly uphill battle."
The pair stressed that "the lawsuit against Greenpeace is an attack on the right to protest and speak freely. It won't be the last. We should all stand with Standing Rock, and with organizations such as Greenpeace that are working for people and the planet and holding the line against the destructive fossil fuel industry."
One expert detailed some of the industry's destruction in comments toThe Associated Press about the Keystone spill earlier this week:
The spill is not a minor one, said Paul Blackburn, a policy analyst with Bold Alliance, an environmental and landowners group that fought the pipeline's extension, called Keystone XL.
The estimated volume of 3,500 barrels, or 147,000 gallons of crude oil, is equal to 16 tanker trucks of oil, he said. That estimate could increase over time, he added.
Blackburn said the bigger picture is what he called the Keystone pipeline's history of spills at a higher rate than other pipelines. He compared Keystone to the Dakota Access oil pipeline since the latter came online in June 2017. In that period, Keystone's system has spilled nearly 1.2 million gallons (4.5 million liters) of oil, while Dakota Access spilled 1,282 gallons (4,853 liters), Blackburn said.
PHMSA said Thursday that it "has dispatched a total of eight inspectors to investigate the pipeline rupture," and Keystone's operator is "voluntarily committing to full cooperation with our investigation and pledging a series of corrective measures," including "a commitment not to restart the pipeline without prior approval."
The federal agency added Friday that as of 1:00 am local time, "five vacuum trucks have recovered and removed 1,170 barrels of crude oil. Cleanup operations are ongoing. PHMSA will continue to provide updated information as we receive it."
While Republican President Donald Trump aims to revive the Keystone XL project and boost the fossil fuel industry in general, one climate champion on Capitol Hill pointed to the spill as further proof of the need to phase out planet-wrecking oil and gas.
U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the chamber's lead sponsor of Green New Deal legislation, said on social media this week: "The Keystone oil pipeline has ruptured and spilled—again. We must continue to fight for strong pipeline safety requirements and get rid of dirty fossil fuels once and for all."
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MVP Is Burying the Truth Along With Its Shoddy Pipes
Faced with a troubling report that reveals multiple pipe defects, Mountain Valley Pipeline spins and misrepresents.
Sep 17, 2024
Almost four months after high-pressure water testing blew a
gaping hole in an elbow pipe fitting section of the Mountain Valley Pipeline on Bent Mountain in Virginia, the pipeline operator filed a report with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on August 29 addressing the cause of the pipe failure.
The incident, which occurred on May 1, roughly six weeks before MVP went into operation, was first noted by local land owners, who observed sediment in a nearby stream, reported it to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), and then photographed the burst pipe as it was hauled away a day later.
MVP sent the 43-page report to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) on August 28, a day before the report was filed with FERC. In June, PHMSA and MVP entered into a consent agreement to resolve a 2023 notice of proposed safety order, which had alleged that conditions existed along MVP’s route through West Virginia and Virginia that posed “an integrity risk to public safety, property, or the environment.”
This fight will continue until MVP is held accountable and this ruinous disaster is stopped before the unthinkable happens.
MVP’s report—and the company’s reaction to it—leave more questions unanswered than answered.
But one thing is clear: MVP tried to mislead PHMSA and FERC, as well as the press and the public at large, by including with the report filing a two-page cover letter that downplayed the incident and omitted crucial information contained in the report.
Also troubling—and unexplained—the report went through three drafts, dated July 23, August 1, and August 21. It was prepared by risk management firm DNV GL USA, which described MVP as its “customer.”
MVP provided DNV with a 12.5-foot section of pipe that contained the burst elbow fitting as well as two smaller sections (1.5 feet and one foot) from a “sister fitting” from the same test section.
MVP claimed in its cover letter that the sister elbow fitting was the only piece of pipe along the 303-mile long pipeline that had a “matching pedigree.” It gave no supporting evidence, nor did it even describe what it meant by “matching pedigree,” and DNV did not address the claim, much less verify it.
DNV did tensile tests on the blown pipe and “duplicate tensile tests” on the two samples from the sister fitting. The purpose of the analysis was “to determine the metallurgical cause of the failure and identify any contributing factors.”
DNV concluded that “the elbow fitting failed at the longitudinal seam weld as a result of ductile overload.” Ductile overload is “the failure mode that occurs when a material is simply loaded to beyond its ultimate tensile strength.” That seems simple enough. Indeed, it is almost self-evident. Obviously, the pipe burst because pressure was put on it that was beyond its capacity to bear. But that does not tell you why there was ductile overload.
A Tale of Two Pipes—and Two Defects
DNV reported that “a majority of the failure was at or near the fusion boundary of the seam weld metal and base metal, indicating a lower tensile strength at or near the fusion boundary compared to the base metal and weld metal.”
That brings us to the second goal of the testing: to determine contributing factors. And that’s where the report gets very interesting—and very scary:
Contributing factors to the lower tensile strength at or near the fusion boundary was (sic) softening of the base metal mid-thickness... and possibly a yield strength lower than the requirement as the base metal yield strength of the sister elbow fitting did not meet the yield strength requirement.
Here, DNV is talking about two different defects in the pipe that burst, and a different defect in the sister pipe.
First, there was inadequate tensile strength , which is the maximum stress that can be applied before an object breaks, in the pipe that burst.
Second, there was possibly also inadequate yield strength, which refers to the maximum stress before an object’s shape permanently changes,in the pipe that burst.The evidence for this is that“the base metal yield strength of the sister elbow fitting”—which MVP admitted had a “matching pedigree”—“did not meet the yield strength requirement.”
Of note, the inadequate yield strength of the sister fitting was not in a welded seam, but rather in the base metal of the pipe itself.
Two pipes tested.
Two pipes defective.
Two different defects.
MVP Pipe Fails to Meet Industry Standards
Taking things further, DNV concluded that “the tensile properties of the sister elbow fitting (base metal) do not meet the tensile requirements for MSS SP75 Grade WPHY70 steel at the time of construction as the yield strength is lower than the required value of 70 ksi; the values are also lower than the MTR value of 70.9 ksi.”
As DNV noted, MSS SP-75 requires a minimum yield strength of 70 kilopounds per square inch (ksi). The two sister elbow samples had a yield strength of 63.5 and 66.8 ksi.
In plain English, the sister elbow would be expected to permanently deform at a level of stress below what was required by industry standards, and the elbow that burst would be expected to break at a level of stress below what is required by industry standards.
Presumably, it is not good for any section of MVP to be either susceptible to permanent alteration or, worse, a straight blow out, when subjected to high pressure. The tested pipes were subject to both. It is terrifying, when one considers that MVP carries explosive methane gas—which is pressurized at up to 1,480 psig—that people live well within the pipeline’s blast zone.
Yet Another Defect in MVP Pipes
And it gets worse.
DNV reported that there was a separate problem altogether: The sister elbow pipe’s fracture appearance transition temperature (FATT) value, which is the temperature at which the steel’s fracture appearance goes from being mostly flexible to mostly brittle, was “higher (poorer) than typical when compared to 2018 vintage line pipe steel.” Simply put, this means that the sister elbow DNV tested was more susceptible to cracking as compared to other pipe steel made in the same time period.
MVP Misleads and Buries the Truth
Mountain Valley Pipeline’s cover letter did not mention any of these problems.
Instead, MVP simply said that its pipeline burst on May 1 “due to a manufacturer’s defective weld,” on one pipe elbow. MVP bragged that a sister fitting “was proactively removed… to provide material for a portion of the mechanical testing aspect of the failure analysis,” but conveniently omitted the fact that the second fitting suffered from multiple manufacturing defects. Incredibly, MVP then misleadingly stated that “a single failure,” when there actually were two defective pipes (out of only two tested), was “a negligible fitting failure rate.”
That’s not even accounting for the fact that this was not the only “failure” that MVP experienced during hydrostatic testing. On June 4, a “jumper pipe” burst, sending a geyser of water hundreds of feet into the nighttime sky and then into a stream that feeds into the Roanoke River. Local residents caught the incident on video. MVP has yet to provide a full explanation of exactly what occurred.
As to the May 1 pipe burst, MVP no doubt was betting that reporters would not dig through 43 pages of highly technical material and instead would rely on MVP’s two-page “summary.” And indeed, with one notable exception, virtually all media outlets did exactly that. Many simply reprinted a story circulated by The Associated Press, which parroted a separate blogpost from MVP that noted that the report found that “there was no evidence of external or internal corrosion.”
By highlighting that DNV found no evidence of corrosion, MVP was cleverly suggesting that widespread concern about corrosion of MVP’s pipes is unfounded. However, concerns about corrosion do not focus on pipes, like the ones at issue here, that were installed and buried in 2018. Rather, the danger of corrosion focuses on the fact that most of the pipeline was installed in 2023 and 2024 using pipes that had been baking in the sun for many years after construction was halted in 2018 and thereafter by federal courts and, in one brief instance, by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. In fact, according to federal court testimony from an MVP executive in 2018, the pipe needed to be installed within one year to avoid having the sun degrade its protective coating, which is designed to prevent corrosion.
MVP Wants Everyone to Take Their Word for It
All of this is very troubling. MVP has a long history of flouting the law, as evidenced by the fact that it has been fined millions of dollars and cited for hundreds of environmental violations as far back as 2018 and as recently as last month.
Now MVP wants those who live along the route and others concerned to accept their claim that the sister elbow fitting it gave to DNV for testing was the only pipe among the 2,500 fittings and thousands of other pipes along the route that had a “matching pedigree” with the pipe that burst, whatever that means, despite the fact that no one—not even DNV—has verified or even evaluated that claim.
MVP likewise does not want anyone to wonder why DNV produced three drafts of the report for its “customer,” MVP. Who knows what MVP asked to be added, deleted, or changed between July 23, when the first draft was completed, and August 21, when the final report was done? Nor is there any explanation as to why MVP waited until August 28 to provide the report to PHMSA.
In short, the people who live next to this polluting and dangerous nightmare, as well as the public at large, are left with many questions and very few answers. And regulatory agencies, whose job it is to protect the public, are simply asleep at the wheel.
As Russell Chisholm, co-director of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights Coalition (POWHR), a local advocacy group, commented:
After four months of waiting, communities near the pipe rupture finally have details from MVP on what caused the pipe explosion during testing. The lab hired by MVP blames the rupture on weak steel and a defective weld. This is a pathetically predictable outcome; we know the MVP has used shoddy materials for their rushed construction job on this massive methane pipeline project. This is yet more evidence of the threat MVP poses to everyone along the route, and why the government never should have greenlit this corrupt project.
Appalachia Is Not a Sacrifice Zone
MVP continues to assault Appalachia. Week after week after week, MVP files environmental “compliance reports” that instead reveal environmental noncompliance, as sediment is deposited in once pristine and protected streams. This damage would be illegal but for the fact that Congress and the White House exempted this project from environmental laws by legislative fiat in June 2023. And just recently, MVP revealed that it is working to remedy an untold number of “slips,” a euphemism for landslides, that could rupture a pipeline that crosses 75 miles with slopes greater than 30%.
Being treated as a sacrifice zone, the people of Appalachia are left to protect themselves and each other.
It is the latest chapter in a centuries-old story.
But the people of Appalachia are strong—and they are not alone. This fight will continue until MVP is held accountable and this ruinous disaster is stopped before the unthinkable happens.
Because it is not just about tensile strength and hydrostatic testing.
It is about the people who live there. And the land they love.
And in the end, the people will win.
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Biden, Buttigieg, and the People in MVP’s Blast Zone Got Lucky
If the 42-inch pipeline ever explodes at 1,480 pounds per square inch of gas pressure, it will be like nothing we have ever seen.
May 06, 2024
When water pressure blew a gaping hole in the Mountain Valley Pipeline on May 1, folks living near the right of way must have had many mixed reactions—anger, fear, outrage, I told you so, even relief. Relief that it happened now before the pipeline becomes highly pressurized with methane gas.
If the 42-inch pipeline ever explodes at 1,480 pounds per square inch of gas pressure, it will be like nothing we have ever seen. Anyone nearby will likely not survive.
It will probably also mark the end of Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s political career because he oversees the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) whose job it is to make sure MVP gets built safely. Of course, ultimately, it is President Joe Biden who is in charge. His path to reelection, already not easy, will become much harder if MVP ruptures prior to November 5.
It’s 2024, and we know we need to get off fossil fuels ASAP. Why are we building a giant pipeline to suck a climate change accelerant out of America’s biggest deposit of contained methane?
One thing we know for sure is that MVP’s corrosion-proof coating is “no longer fit for purpose.” We don’t know it because we’re experts. We know it because we understand English and we can read. That quote is from a study done by…TC Energy, the company that wanted to build the Keystone XL pipeline (and may still try to if former President Donald Trump wins again).
The picture of the truck hauling away the ruptured section of MVP pipe is alarming, to say the least, but to the untrained eye it offers no clue as to why the steel separated. Hopefully, there will be transparency regarding the investigation and we’ll be able to trust its findings.
Although we know the pipe coating is no good, up until now we’ve had no reason to necessarily question the quality of the pipe itself. But the company that manufactured the pipe, Welspun, has some history that people should be aware of.
In what seems like a weird combination of products lines, besides manufacturing heavy steel pipe, the company also manufactures fine linen. In 2016, Target and Walmart cut ties with Welspun and hundreds of thousands of bed sheets were pulled off store shelves because they were falsely labeled and not as luxurious as advertised.
In 2010, Plains Justice released a report titled Use of Substandard Steel by the U.S. Pipeline Industry 2007 TO 2009. It begins with this: “Between 2007 and 2009 a number of pipe mills produced substandard steel pipe for U.S. pipeline companies. This pipe failed to comply with the American Petroleum Institute Grade 5L X70 standard (API 5L X70 Standard).”
A few paragraphs later: “A number of companies are implicated in producing defective pipe, but it appears that Welspun Corp. Ltd (Welspun), an Indian steel pipe manufacturer, produced most of it. For example, according to released documents, Welspun was responsible for 88% of pipe with expansion anomalies provided to Boardwalk,” which was one of the pipeline building companies.
In 2009, pipeline company Kinder Morgan sued Welspun because pipe that had been purchased was “defective and would not hold up under the required pressure load.”
So has MVP been built with bad pipe? We don’t know, and we need to find out. But regardless, what we do know is MVP’s pipe coating is shot and “no longer fit for purpose.” That alone is more than enough reason to finally throw in the towel and cut our losses on this insane boondoggle.
It’s 2024, and we know we need to get off fossil fuels ASAP. Why are we building a giant pipeline to suck a climate change accelerant out of America’s biggest deposit of contained methane? How much do we want our grandkids to hate us in coming years? How hard do we want to make their lives?
To understand how we know that MVP’s pipe coating is no good, read this. It also tells about three-year-old Delaney Tercero’s death in a hospital burn unit two days after a gas pipeline (which was minuscule compared to MVP) exploded near her home. The cause of the explosion was corrosion due to defective pipe coating. Her parents and younger sister escaped with their lives, but they’ll never get over their loss.
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