Environmentalist opponents of Keystone XL today opened a new battlefront against the pipeline's southern, Oklahoma-to-Texas leg -- supported by President Obama -- by charging the company behind the project with flouting U.S. EPA advice by seeking a less demanding type of Clean Water Act permit.

Friends of the Earth and Public Citizen Texas pointed a finger at TransCanada Corp. for pursuing a Nationwide Permit (NWP) from the Army Corps of Engineers that would allow the Alberta-based company to release dredged sediment and other materials into U.S. waterways during construction of Keystone XL's 485-mile southern segment.

The general NWP designation does not carry the same burden of environmental analysis and public review than a more individualized permit would require from applicants such as TransCanada. By seeking the less demanding permit from the Army Corps, the green groups say, Keystone XL's sponsor is sidestepping the advice of officials at EPA's Region 6 in Dallas who warned last year that the Oklahoma-to-Texas leg known as the Gulf Coast Project would have to apply for an individualized approval under the Clean Water Act.

Of the Keystone XL segment's waterway entry points, "approximately 60 crossings would result in significant cumulative effects on the aquatic ecosystem," EPA Region 6's associate director of ecosystem protection, Jane Watson, wrote to the Army Corps in a November letter released today by environmentalists against the pipeline.

Requiring TransCanada to clear the higher hurdle of an individualized permit, Watson added, "would allow for public participation" and work on a broad review that would "assist in further avoidance and minimization of environmental impacts."

Keystone XL would nearly double U.S. imports of Canadian oil-sands crude, a heavier fuel that environmentalists malign as bound to magnify the effects of climate change and hurt human as well as wildlife health. The pipeline's supporters in industry and on Capitol Hill, including some Democrats as well as Republicans, point to its potential for displacing Middle Eastern imports and for creating new jobs.

In urging EPA headquarters to intercede on the permits for the Gulf Coast Project -- which TransCanada is moving ahead on this year as approval for the rest of Keystone XL's 1,700 miles remains stalled -- the green groups invoked this week's resignation of Region 6 chief Al Armendariz. The sudden departure came after a GOP outcry over Armendariz's use of the biblical term "crucify" to describe his approach to enforcement of rules for the oil and gas industry.

With Armendariz gone, Friends of the Earth and Public Citizen wrote, "it is imperative that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson intervene to ensure a permitting process for the southern segment that is transparent, science-based and rigorous as required by bedrock environmental law."

The Army Corps' last public statements on Section 404 permits for Keystone XL came in March, when officials testified that TransCanada would need to reapply but had not yet done so (E&E Daily, March 28).

The company behind Keystone XL did not immediately return a request for comment on its Clean Water Act permitting bid. Separately, TransCanada is expected as soon as tomorrow to resubmit its application for State Department approval of the remainder of the XL line, which it is permitted to do in advance of official certification for a new route through the contested state of Nebraska.

Click here to read the letter from EPA's Region 6 to the Army Corps.