Pipeline That Would Send Crude Oil To Superior Still In Planning Phase

A pipeline to bring oil from North Dakota to Wisconsin remains on the planning board despite concerns about property rights and pollution.

The Bakken shale fields in North Dakota are producing a lot of light sweet crude oil, and Enbridge, Inc. wants to pipe more of the material 600 hundred miles to Superior for later re-routing around the nation.

Enbridge spokesperson Lorraine Little says the oil needs to be moved. “The North Dakota Bakken shale formation is prolific – every day it seems like they find a greater amount of oil to be extracted.”

Little says safety of the pipeline will be a priority, “from the wall thickness of the pipeline [to] fusion-bonded hypoxia coating.”

Little says Enbridge’s goal is zero leaks. But Enbridge pipelines have leaked elsewhere – most notably near Kalamazoo, Mich. a few years ago and in central Wisconsin last year. Beth Wallace of the National Wildlife Federation says pipeline companies too often don’t respect property owners near the proposed routes.

“They don’t look at the route and the direct impact it has on people,” says Wallace. “Home septics have to get torn out, or the sides of people’s porches, or [the pipeline] comes literally within feet of a house.”

Enbridge says it asks property owners for permission to do environmental land surveys and holds meetings with landowners. The company just held a series of open houses on the Sandpiper Pipeline Project ahead of making a final route recommendation to government regulators.