Pipeline meets stiff opposition

Baton Rouge – The company recently embroiled in the losing effort to build the Dakota Access pipeline is finding rough going as part of a consortium that wants to build another one through the Atchafalaya Basin.
Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners is one of the companies proposing construction of a 24-inch, 162-mile pipeline that would transport 280,000 barrels of crude oil per day from an oil terminal in Lake Charles to a St. James refinery on the west bank of the Mississippi River, about 50 miles upstream from New Orleans.
The proposed pipeline would cross 11 parishes, 700 water bodies, eight Louisiana watersheds and the state-designated “Coastal Zone Boundary.” Critics say it will endanger the water supply for 300,000 Louisiana residents and do further damage to a fragile area already devastated by past pipeline construction.
In a Jan. 12 joint public meeting with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Louisiana Dept. of Environmental Quality, it became clear this was not going to be an easy sell. Basin fishermen and groups concerned with the protection of the Atchafalaya, including The Louisiana Crawfish Producer’s Association, The Sierra Club, Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, the Gulf Restoration Network and several others made their opposition very clear.
A petition against the pipeline was submitted by Basinkeeper containing 75,000 signatures. Director Dean Wilson said spoil banks left behind by pipeline construction have “devastated the Basin.” He suggested no company that has done substandard work in the Basin should be issued a permit until their past work has been brought into compliance.
Crawfisherman and Henderson town council member Jody Meche said “There is no reason we should have crippled our environment the way it has been crippled in the past decade.”
Parish President Guy Cormier, like Meche, said he is not against the petroleum industry, but he said better control is needed in the Atchafalaya. He told the Teche News that if a permit is granted, the Corps should not only insist on removal of the resulting spoil, but also mitigation in the form of removal of existing banks.
Spoil banks, the long mounds of soil dug out when trenches are excavated, are supposed to be removed. But pipeline companies often save money by ignoring that part of their contract and leaving the banks in place, where they act as levees. The many east-west spoil banks in the Basin are the main impediment to natural water flow, causing stagnation and silting.
Critics say the Corps of Engineers has turned a blind eye to this failure on the part of pipeline contractors. Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Russell Honoré, who formed a coalition of environmental protection groups called the Green Army, said “We do not have the regulation or the staff to supervise these pipelines.” He adds that state lawmakers have done little to force contractors to address past problems.
When pipes get old, more problems occur. Haywood Martin, Chairman of the Sierra Club’s Delta Chapter in Louisiana, said “There are numerous leaks from pipelines that are now affecting water quality in the Gulf and in the watersheds.”
Joey Mahmoud, speaking for Energy Transfer Partners, defended the record of recently-constructed pipelines. “With the new technology that’s available, this will prove to be one of the safest pipelines in Louisiana, just because it’s being built now instead of in the past.”
Many of the meeting attendees voiced the need to reduce petroleum consumption. Former U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, now a consultant for ETP, said America’s need for oil will go on and pipelines are safer than using trucks, trains and barges.
Governor John Bell Edwards, like his predecessor Bobby Jindal, appears to support pipelines in the Basin. He has said, “The idea of another pipeline traversing the Atchafalaya does not keep me up at night.”