State uses US spills to push CD-5 bridge

The State of Alaska is using recent spills into U.S. waterways from buried pipeline crossings as additional evidence that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should reverse its insistence on a buried line for CD-5.

The Corps rejected a proposal by ConocoPhillips to take a crude oil pipeline across the Nigliq channel of the Colville River by bridge, insisting instead on a directionally drilled buried line.

Natural Resources Commissioner Dan Sullivan sent a letter to the Corps of Engineers’ district commander on July 20, asking him to take into account the recent spill into the Yellowstone River in Montana and other recent spills from buried pipelines that caused pollution in U.S. and Canadian waterways.

“We have long believed that the basis upon which the Corps and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rejected the CD-5 bridge permit was erroneous,” Sullivan said in a statement after signing the letter.

Sullivan called the decision “part of an unfortunate pattern of shutting down resource development in Alaska.”

“The state has recently provided compelling evidence that the Corps’ recommended approach to the CD-5 project is not the least environmentally damaging, practicable alternative. Recent events in the Lower 48 further substantiate the state’s view.”

The Corps is reconsidering its decision rejecting a bridge and aboveground pipe crossing from CD-5 in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The project would be the first production from NPR-A.

—Petroleum News