TransCanada files plans for its second oil pipeline
By Bob Mercer
State Capitol Bureau
PIERRE -- TransCanada Keystone Pipeline company has applied to the state Public Utilities Commission for a permit to construct its second crude-oil pipeline through South Dakota, this time through the sparsely populated ranch country west of the Missouri River.
The Calgary-based company’s construction timetable calls for work to begin in South Dakota in 2011 and service to begin in 2012, with a peak construction work force of up to 1,400 people during the months of May through August of 2011.
The company is looking at the potential for expanding and developing recreation-vehicle parks to help handle lodging for the construction workforce.
The PUC will need to hold a formal hearing on the permit and establish a process to take public comments and allow for other parties to intervene, similar to the hearing held in December 2007 on TransCanada’s first pipeline through South Dakota.
State regulators likely will start discussing the timetable and related steps for the permitting process at the PUC’s next meeting March 24. The agenda for that meeting hasn’t been officially set yet.
A federal environmental-impact statement is required.
The western region of South Dakota where the pipeline would be built carries a potential for discovery of significant fossils.
The partners in the project are TransCanada and ConocoPhillips Corp. The XL project would carry up to 900,000 barrels of crude oil daily from Hardisty, Alberta, to U.S. pipeline and refinery operations.
The underground line would enter South Dakota from Montana and cross through Harding, Butte, Perkins, Meade, Pennington, Haakon, Jones, Lyman and Tripp counties on its way into Nebraska.
The pipeline overall will be 1,703 miles long. The 313 miles that would be in South Dakota will cost $920 million for equipment, construction and installation, according to the company.
The project will need a presidential permit from the U.S. Department of State to cross the U.S.-Canada border.
The company is already building its Keystone pipeline down South Dakota’s eastern half, through the heavily-farmed James River Valley, from North Dakota to Nebraska to carry crude oil from tar-sands fields of Alberta, Canada, to refineries in the south-central United States.
The proposed new XL pipeline would provide TransCanada with a second route through South Dakota.
The XL line would have three major water bodies to cross. As proposed the line would cross beneath the Little Missouri River in Harding County, and cross beneath the Cheyenne River just south of the four-corners neck where Meade, Pennington, Haakon and Ziebach counties meet.
The route would intersect Interstate 90 in Jones County and cross beneath the White River at the Lyman-Tripp counties border.
TransCanada Keystone vice president Robert Jones said the company would have paid $10.8 million in property taxes in South Dakota if the project had been operating in 2008. He said the pipeline will more than double the property-tax base in some of the counties and school districts through which it will cross.
Some of the school districts along the route currently receive additional state funding because they are so sparsely populated. South Dakota funds public school systems based on student enrollment.
http://www.bhpioneer.com/articles/2009/03/14/breaking_news/doc49bc37789e...
