Keystone XL Pipeline Mapping Project

ORIGINAL: Keystone Mapping Project

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The Keystone Mapping Project provides the public with detailed route information for the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline. Neither TransCanada Corporation nor the U.S. Department of State (DOS) have been forthcoming with this project’s GIS information. This has made it impossible to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Overview

The Keystone XL is part of the Keystone Pipeline System proposed by TransCanada in 2005 to deliver synthetic crude oil and diluted bitumen (tar sands oil) from Alberta, Canada to Houston, Texas in the United States. The proposed route from the international border between the United States and Canada will run through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.

The lead agency in the United States for approval of this project is the DOS, who published the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Keystone XL on their website in 2011.

Conspicuously missing from the FEIS are the location data for the pipeline milepost markers (MP). The MP markers are critically necessary for the interpretation of the FEIS. They are repeatedly referenced throughout both the project and DOS documents and are key reference points for all discussions of the pipeline route, potential environmental impacts, and surrounding points of interest.

Oil Pipeline Routing Data are Public Information

Federal and state agencies consider oil and gas pipeline GIS data to be public information. Such agencies include the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the US Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration(PHMSA), the Texas Railroad Commission, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, and the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Difficulty in Obtaining Data

Regardless of the fact that the GIS data are necessary to evaluate the FEIS, neither TransCanada nor the DOS will release the Keystone XL GIS data. The data found on this site were obtained from these sources.

TransCanada employees give disparate reasons for not making the GIS data available, the most common being that pipeline data is a Homeland Security issue (this from a Canadian company). More frankly, some TransCanada engineers have referred me to the company’s Community Relations department. Community Relations claims that only general maps are available for proposed routes. This indicates that, by design, proposed routes are not intended to be reviewed.

Calling into question the thoroughness of the evaluation of the FEIS is the government’s claim that I am the only person in the country to request the MP data. The information is considered to be sensitive and, as the project has officially been denied by the President, the DOS does not feel obligated to release it. President Obama undermined this position when he recently voiced support for construction of the southern portion of the route from Cushing, Oklahoma to Port Arthur, Texas. By approving this key segment of the pipeline, the President has clearly signaled his imminent approval of the entire Keystone XL pipeline and delivery of tar sands oil to our southern ports.

The lack of transparency by both the project’s sponsor and the DOS, calls into question the process leading to approval of the FEIS and, thus, the viability and true consequences of the Keystone XL itself.

Freedom of Information Request Act Request

I have filed a FOIA request and will make more data available as I receive it.

- Thomas Bachand

Author & Photographer

http://www.thomasbachand.com

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