Tar Sands Pipelines

Explore, enjoy and protect the planet

Issues

Local SD Groups

SD Chapter

National Sierra Club

Keystone XL Pipeline

TransCanada filed a siting application with the South Dakota PUC for the Keystone XL pipeline on March 12, 2009.  The proposed pipeline would run from near Hardisty, Alberta, to existing Texas terminals near Port Arthur and Houston.  It would enter South Dakota from Montana in Harding County and then run through Butte, Perkins, Meade, Pennington, Haakon, Jones, Lyman and Tripp counties before entering Nebraska.  The pipeline would have a capacity of 900,000 barrels a day.

The PUC hearing on the Keystone XL Pipeline permit application is scheduled for Nov. 2-6, 2009, in Pierre.

Keystone Pipeline

TransCanada Corporation is now constructing the Keystone pipeline from Alberta to southern Illinois near the Wood River refinery.  The pipeline would go through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri with a possible extension into Oklahoma. (view map of project) It would have a capacity of 435,000 barrels a day in the initial stage to open in 2009, and 590,000 barrels a day for the final phase, which would be completed in 2011.

Tribes have filed lawsuit

The Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate and the Rosebud, Santee and Yankton Sioux tribes have gone to federal court at Pierre in an effort to stop construction of the Keystone oil pipeline through eastern South Dakota and North Dakota. The tribes argue that treaties, as well as federal laws and regulations, were broken during the environmental assessment of the route and subsequent granting of a presidential permit for the pipeline and that a proper review has not been done in conjunction with tribes on the potential of culturally significant sites along the pipeline corridor.

Approval process

1. The US Department of State - Application for Presidential Permit for Liquid Pipeline

• EIS Documents

• Comments of Dakota Resource Council, Plains Justice, Natural Resources Defense Council, Citizens Opposed to Oil Pollution, Save Our Siouxland Coalition, Save Union County Committee, to U.S. Department of State draft Environmental Impact Study of TransCanada Keystone Pipeline

2. SD Public Utilities Commission - Application for Pipeline Permit

   • PUC Documents

Approval process articles

• Landowners hire lawyer to fight condemnation - 10/7/07

• Seward NE City Council wants pipeline moved - 9/12/07

• NE Nebraska landowners criticize pipeline placement - 9/12/07

• Pipeline concerns aired - 9/12/07

• Pipeline meeting draws 100 - 9/12/07

• North Dakota's PSC asked TransCanada why they didn't use existing corridors for the Keystone project.  They asked the company to avoid plans to clear-cut an 85-foot-wide path through the forested banks of the Sheyenne River and asked about land reclamation intentions and negotiations with landowners whose homes are less than 500 feet from the pipeline.  (9/5/07)