North Slope crude spills from Alaska pipeline

www.cnn.com...

Several thousand barrels of North Slope crude oil spilled into a containment area along the Alaska pipeline Tuesday when an open valve at a pump station allowed oil to overflow a tank, the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company said.

Alyeska said the incident took place about 10:30 a.m. (2:30 p.m. ET) during a planned pipeline shutdown while the company was conducting fire command and valve leak testing at the pump station.

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation said a battery failed to control the valve when power was switched from the main grid during Alyeska's tests. The valve has been closed, shutting off the flow, the department said, but the pipeline remains shut down.

The department said the next steps would be to clean up the oil in the containment area, determine the cause of the problem and restart oil flowing in the pipeline. No oil has been reported outside the containment area.

Mark MacIntyre, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency in Seattle, Washington, said two EPA coordinators would arrive on the scene from Anchorage on Wednesday and have a report in the afternoon.

The pump station is near Delta Junction, about 100 miles south of Fairbanks. Ayleska said the lined containment area that took the spill has a capacity of about 104,500 barrels.

Gulf Spill... Singapore spill... now Alaska spill... This is starting to get rediculous.

Once is an anomaly
twice is a coincidence
three times is a pattern

either the oil companies have suddenly had real bad luck of something well and truly odd is afoot.

I'm sure the whole containtment thing is a ploy to say, "look, we only screw up 2/3rds of the time! " Wouldn't be suprised if this thing happened just to save face...

Originally posted by monkofmimir
Once is an anomaly
twice is a coincidence
three times is a pattern

either the oil companies have suddenly had real bad luck of something well and truly odd is afoot.

Nah. Oil spills happen all the time worldwide. This is just like how people were flipping out after large earthquakes went off weeks after a very large one not too long ago.

It takes a major event for people to notice. Once they're focused on it, they go searching for patterns of the said event. So they find ones which are usually smaller and much more common, and claim that it's beyond probability. If several events of the same magnitude happened within a relatively short period of time, then this would give reason to have an investigation.

reply to post by unityemissions


Hmmm, I do see your point

I don't know, what the average amount of oil spill's a year is, I ASSUMED it was pretty rare but assumptions are never a good idea.

Although I am surprised if the average oil spill rate is as high as it has been this year but I guess Oil can buy all the media silence they want.

Thanks for the pointer

This is like the recent "earthquake fever". Earthquakes happen everyday, and I'm guessing oil issues do as well ... considering how many millions of wells, ships, pieplines, workers are involved in daily production.

I bet the speculators are drumming up every "oil industry bloody nose" they can to pump up the price of oil

[edit on 25-5-2010 by area6]

You want oil!? You got it, all over the place! We wanted oil so bad that it is now destroying ecosystems and marine life.

These 3 spills are a weird coincidence I guess? Although, it is rather humorous that oil is suppose to be is most precious resource known to man because it is so scarce, yet we keep losing thousands of tons for no other reason except for our neglect to preserve and adequately secure it.

Pretty sure we wouldn't just lose thousands of tons of diamonds and gold. Maybe, there is more oil than they have let on. What and when was peak oil again? What a joke! Keep the planet clean god damnit!

This is sad. I am really starting to wonder if something is actually going on that we are being kept in the dark about.

1 leak, alright. 2 leaks, hm weird, but alright. 3 leaks, I begin questioning the official story. 4 and more and I start to really grow concerned.

I still think this is a conspiracy to drive oil prices up, and as an excuse to invade Iran or something.

Originally posted by unityemissions

Originally posted by monkofmimir
Once is an anomaly
twice is a coincidence
three times is a pattern

either the oil companies have suddenly had real bad luck of something well and truly odd is afoot.

Nah. Oil spills happen all the time worldwide. This is just like how people were flipping out after large earthquakes went off weeks after a very large one not too long ago.

It takes a major event for people to notice. Once they're focused on it, they go searching for patterns of the said event.

It's about time we start finding a permanent solution for our energy needs to replace oil. This could come to a head in the not too distant future where the population is fed up with all of the environmental disasters and say enough is enough. I know I have. Down with the oil industry. I'm riding my bike to work for the rest of the week maybe until it snows again!

reply to post by belidged


... you aren't the first person and you will defintely not be the last. Just because people say that we need a different energy source doesnt mean its coming. Hate to burst your bubble but there is still money to be made in oil.

The number of large spills (over 206,500 gallons) averaged 24.1 per year from 1970 to 1979, but decreased to 6.9 per year from 1990 through 2000.

www.waterencyclopedia.com...



I find that completely shocking, I only thought there were one or two spills a year in a BAD year this is just incredible I'm lost for words.

Anyone know how many we've had this year?

because this still might be a spike.