Keystone Oil Pipeline Third Party EIS

Client: U.S. Department of State

Location: U.S. and Canada

Summary: ENTRIX prepared the Department of State (DOS) third party EIS for the TransCanada Keystone Pipeline, LLC (Keystone). The pipeline is under construction, and consists of two distinct segments: a 30 inch diameter 1,078 mile mainline crude oil pipeline delivering Western Canada Shale Basin (WCSB) tar sands syncrude from Hardisty (Alberta), Canada to existing facilities at Wood River and Patoka, Illinois; and a 36 inch diameter 292 mile segment that extends from southern Nebraska to a terminal in Cushing, Oklahoma. Potential throughput in the pipeline system is 591,000 barrels per day.

Oil pipelines crossing the international border require a Presidential Permit administered by DOS. Cooperating agencies for the EIS included USEPA, USFWS, USCOE, USDOE, and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP). The pipeline corridor crosses seven states, including North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Illinois. Major river crossings include the Missouri River, the Platte River, the Mississippi River, and the Arkansas River. In total the mainline pipeline crosses 272 perennial streams and rivers and the Cushing extension crosses an additional 58 perennial water bodies. Proposed river crossing construction methodologies analyzed in the EIS include horizontal directional drilling (HDD), open-cut wet crossings, dam and pump, and dry flume crossings.

The EIS also addresses impacts from the construction of power substations, transmission lines, access roads, staging areas, and pump stations. The EIS addresses 29 special status wildlife species and 40 species of special concern (including the Indiana bat), as well as 13 special status fish species (including the Topeka shiner) and 4 mussel species. ENTRIX staff authored each section of the EIS. Sections include geology, soils, and water resources, land use, socioeconomics, recreational and special interest areas, visual resources, wetland vegetation, terrestrial vegetation, wildlife, and threatened and endangered species, and cultural resources. In addition, ENTRIX personnel assisted the DOS in consultation with Indian tribes and in compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). Over 80 Tribes were included within the compliance effort.

The Draft EIS for the project was issued within 10 months of the 13 scoping meetings held along the proposed pipeline corridor, and the FEIS was completed and published in January 2008, 14 months after the completion of scoping.