Donations go directly to assisting with the cleanup effort and helping individuals displaced from their homes during this environmental crisis.
An oil spill in a creek in northeastern Kansas shut down a major pipeline that carries oil from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast, briefly causing oil prices to rise Thursday.
Canada-based TC Energy said it shut down its Keystone system Wednesday night following a drop in pipeline pressure. It said oil spilled into a creek in Washington County, Kansas, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northwest of Kansas City.
The Keystone pipeline, which traverses 2,600 miles from western Canada through the central US, leaked an estimated 14,000 barrels of oil, more than half a million gallons, into a creek in Washington county, Kansas, on 7 December. The incident was the largest onshore oil spill since at least 2013, the Keystone pipeline’s third major spill in the last five years, and the largest since it began operating in 2010. It is also the case that previous estimates from earlier spills on the pipeline have turned out to be much larger than the initial estimates.
Four dead mammals and 71 dead fish were recovered from the latest spill site, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which is involved in cleanup efforts with the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), state and local agencies, the pipeline owner and operator TC Energy and the company’s contractors. About 5,500 barrels of oil and water and 5,000 cubic yards of oil-contaminated soil have been recovered in initial cleanup efforts. Most of the undamaged parts of the pipeline resumed operations last week, as cleanup efforts and an investigation into the cause of the spill continue. On Tuesday it was reported that TC Energy had submitted its plan to regulators for fully restarting it.
The spill was the largest onshore oil spill since at least 2013 and the largest spill in the Keystone pipeline system since it began operating in 2010.
