Landowners and environmental groups this week criticized a proposed 1,700-mile pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf Coast, arguing the project could leak crude oil into underground aquifers and would cut through prized wildlife habitat.

TransCanada Corp.'s proposal to transport up to 900,000 barrels of crude a day to a depot in Oklahoma and oil refineries along Texas's Gulf Coast would more than double U.S. imports of fuel from Canadian oil sands, a source many blame for releasing substantially higher amounts of greenhouse gases than conventional crude operations.

After issuing a draft permit for the $7 billion Keystone XL project in April, the State Department recently extended the public comment period two weeks from its original June 16 deadline and scheduled additional public hearings on the project in Houston and Washington, D.C.

State and provincial officials, organized labor groups and consumer energy advocates have praised the project for its potential to create thousands of jobs, expand trade with a dependable oil supplier and offer potential new markets for oil producers in Montana and North Dakota.

But at a hearing this week in Washington, a landowner group criticized the company's proposal to use thinner-walled pipes along rural portions of the project route and urged the department to consider the possible impacts of TransCanada abandoning the pipeline at the end of its lifetime.

"Farm and ranch land should be afforded the same level of safety that cities are," said Tom Rudolph, a grain farmer from Circle, Mont., who co-leads the Northern Plains Pipeline Landowners Group, which includes more than 40 individuals whose properties the pipeline would cross.

TransCanada's 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline would deliver crude from Alberta's oil sands region to U.S. hubs and refineries. But environmental groups and some landowners in the pipeline's path say the U.S. government should toughen environmental requirements for the $7 billion project. Map courtesy of TransCanada.

TransCanada applied for a special permit from the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to operate portions of the pipeline at pressures exceeding normal safety standards. In return, the company has agreed to use advanced materials and conduct more rigorous pipeline testing.

While such waivers have been granted for natural gas pipelines both in the United States and Canada, critics contend the alternative standard presents an undue environmental risk, citing the catastrophic BP PLC oil spill playing out in the Gulf of Mexico.

"A spill along the Keystone XL route is a real risk, a risk that the draft [environmental impact statement] largely dismisses," Rudolph said. The exemption, he said, would allow TransCanada "to use thinner pipe than the engineering standards call for."

Robert Jones, vice president for TransCanada's Keystone project, said the pipeline will meet or exceed all environmental regulations and that the special permit request recognizes pipeline material advancements that are already in use in gas pipelines in the United States.

"The fact of the matter is we propose using a lighter, stronger form of pipe," he told reporters during a Tuesday conference call. "Steel used in pipelines today can take advantage of improvements in technology that make today's cars and other vehicles lighter and safer than ever."

The Transportation Department has already approved similar exemptions for separate segments of the Keystone project including a 1,000-mile, 30-inch stretch from the Canadian border with North Dakota to Wood River, Ill., and a nearly 300-mile, 36-inch extension from Jefferson County, Neb., to Cushing, Okla.

"The entire project is being viewed in the context of the ongoing oil tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico," Jones said, adding that the proposed difference in thickness is less than half the width of a compact disc.

If the special permit is granted, TransCanada will be allowed to operate the pipeline at a pressure of 80 percent of maximum bursting pressure, rather than the 72 percent specified in standard regulations, according to the Calgary-based firm.

Habitat, aquifer concerns

While the vast majority of the project will be buried about 4 feet underground, access roads, maintenance facilities, pump stations and other infrastructure would damage wildlife habitat, said Jim Lyon, vice president for conservation policy at the National Wildlife Federation.

"This pipeline would traverse rivers and carve across prairies, flow on top of vital aquifers, and threaten farmers, ranchers and wildlife when it leaks or breaks, which we believe it undoubtedly will," he said, citing a spill last month at a Chevron Corp. pipeline near Salt Lake City that dumped 800 barrels of oil into Red Butte Creek (Greenwire, June 14).

The pipeline would also cross some of the best pronghorn antelope habitat in Montana and the Yellowstone River, Lyon said, and would cut through short-grass prairie habitat for the mountain plover, a species targeted for federal protections under a proposal announced this week by the Fish and Wildlife Service (E&ENews PM, June 29).

TransCanada's application to the Bureau of Land Management calls for a temporary 60-foot-wide construction right-of-way and a slightly smaller permanent right-of-way, according to the State Department.

Lyon and others also questioned the wisdom of routing the pipeline above portions of the Ogallala aquifer, a porous structure that supplies drinking water for 2 million people and waters more than a quarter of irrigated land in the United States.

"We don't want it near us," said Ben Gotschall, a cattle rancher from Holt County, Neb., who depends on the Ogallala and whose land would be traversed by the pipeline's proposed route.

"It's a very permeable soil," he said of his farm, "sandy soil that would allow oil to seep down to the aquifer."

While a remote risk to water supplies, leaks from the Keystone XL pipeline would not pose a significant threat to the Ogallala or other aquifers, said Heidi Tillquist, an environmental toxicologist for the consulting and design firm AECOM, which is contracted by TransCanada.

"It's not an underground cavern filled with water, but rather the Ogallala formation is comprised of sand and gravel with water filling in the spaces," Tillquist said. "Not all parts of the aquifer are equally vulnerable to contamination."

In some places, the aquifer is at or near the surface, while at others it is 300 feet deep, Tillquist said.

Moreover, most pipeline leaks are miniscule compared to the accident gushing a mile underneath the Gulf of Mexico, she said.

Most pipeline leaks involve less than three barrels of oil, she said, and less than 0.5 percent of spills total more than 10,000 barrels. Also, crude oil does not disperse through soils in the same way as pesticides and other chemicals used in modern farming, she said.

Mounting pressure

The criticism from landowners and environmental groups comes as the State Department faces new pressure from lawmakers and a former member of President Obama's transition team to delay final approval of the project in order to further assess its global warming implications.

Last week a group of nearly 50 Democratic lawmakers issued a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging the agency to postpone its approval of the project until the White House Council on Environmental Quality finalizes guidance for federal agencies to evaluate climate change impacts in reviewing projects such as the Keystone pipeline.

"We believe that a full lifecycle assessment of the greenhouse gas emissions for tar sands would provide the Department of State with necessary information to determine whether issuing a presidential permit for the pipeline is consistent with the Administration's clean energy and climate change priorities," said the letter signed by Reps. Jay Inslee (Wash.), Peter Welch (Vt.), Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) and 46 others.

Speaking to a largely pro-oil sands crowd at an event in Washington last week, CEO of the left-leaning Center for American Progress John Podesta said he is "skeptical about a green vision for tar sands."

"I question the hurry with which the State Department has chosen to decide whether or not to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline," said Podesta, who is considered an adviser to the president on energy issues. "As the Gulf spill reminds us every day, rushing to complete oil projects invites disaster."

The State Department considered the impacts of GHG emissions from both the construction of the Keystone pipeline and receiving refineries along the Gulf Coast, but did not consider emissions from upstream mining and processing of oil sands, an agency official said.

The pending guidance from CEQ would be incorporated into the agency's environmental review only if it is finalized before the department issues its final approval of the project, the official said.

But labor leaders and state officials in Montana and North Dakota warned that further delays to the project would only delay the creation of jobs and opportunities for new domestic energy development.

"[Keystone] XL has the potential to be an economic boon for Montana's economy by increasing jobs and tax revenues and opening up potential new markets for oil from our Bakken and Williston formations," Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) said in a May letter to Clinton.

A study released this month by the Perryman Group, an economic analysis firm based in Waco, Texas, concluded that the project could generate more than $20 billion in new spending for the U.S. economy and would provide more than $585 million in state and local taxes along the pipeline route.

Click here to read the lawmakers' letter.