Our nation, and the gulf states in particular, have made a bargain with the oil industry wherein we have accepted the risks of major spills for the benefits of oil and petrochemicals.
Even officials with BP, the company responsible for the gulf spill and cleanup, acknowledge that most of the equipment in use represents improvements in old technology, and cite the lack of major spills in the past two decades as one reason.
Since the spills, the pipeline industry has emphasized that oil lines remain safe and reliable, and that major spills are rare.
Although most of the Congressional fire was aimed at BP on Tuesday, the other executives came under criticism as well, particularly for the response plans that they prepared for a major spill in the gulf.
Ten years later, Koch Industries, which owns a refinery on the bay, was responsible for a major spill that resulted in the release of 100000 gal of oil, leaving a 12 mile slick that seeped into Corpus Christi Bay.
It appears to have been calculated using a method that is specifically not recommended for major oil spills.
Pipelines designed to flex have snapped -- Katrina's damage may include 10 major spills.
But an examination of government data on spill rates for similar pipelines, according to the study, suggests that Keystone would experience "a more likely average of almost two major spills per year".
He didn't have a major spill for 19 years -- surely evidence of remarkable alertness and intuition, rather like going into battle 20,000 times or so and emerging unscathed.
In a context of increasing globalisation, both intersectoral and international technology spill-ins may greatly affect the NARS design, and this paper proposes an analytical framework for its study when major spill-ins are present.
That conclusion has been criticized by the pipeline's opponents for not adequately taking into account the impacts of a major spill and for failing to sufficiently consider a route skirting the Ogallala Aquifer, a critical water source.
