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Sediment and blackened trees documented by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection near the compromised Equitrans gas storage well in Cambria County on Nov. 28.
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Adriana E. Ramírez: What fos­sil fuel di­sas­ter will be the last one we tol­er­ate?

DEP

Adriana E. Ramírez: What fos­sil fuel di­sas­ter will be the last one we tol­er­ate?

The pipes are bursting.

In Cambria County, gas leaked for weeks before Equitrans Midstream, the publicly-traded company in charge of the wells, plugged it for good in early December. About two weeks ago, TC Energy’s Keystone Pipeline leaked into a waterway and the farmlands that surrounded it. This summer, Energy Transfer Partners wrapped up a methane leak in Texas only to discover an oil spill in Tennessee.

Great, another year of totally preventable environmental disasters.

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Most people hate regulations. Regulations seem antithetical to good business—and the overregulation of corporations can feel excessive when it comes to some common sense measures. Overall, I completely understand why so many people and companies hate them.

Except when it comes to the environment. When it comes to the purity of our air, land and waterways, regulations should not only exist, but should be enforced with brutal penalties for those that violate them.

Because the truth of the matter is that while regulations are the law, regulation does not ensure compliance. In fact, many companies know exactly what their weak points are: Companies hire outside consultants to inspect their systems not only for safety, but to calculate the trade-offs between cleanup and compliance.

It comes down to simple math. What is the price of fixing the pipeline or of maintaining it? Now, what is the price of recovery? What’s the fine from the Department of Environmental Protection? Which number is larger — the cost of preventing a disaster or the cost of mopping up the mess?

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Never mind how much it will cost generations of people who live or near on the affected land.

Companies that extract and transport fossil fuels should be held to the highest standards possible. A company cannot reap billions of dollars in profit while communities around the country pay the price in illnesses and deaths correlated to that company’s products. If we cannot enforce these standards, we should move away from fossil fuels.

We can talk about it in terms of the economy and jobs as long as we want, and many of those arguments are valid — but they should also encourage us to pursue new opportunities, like jobs in an environmentally responsible energy sector, rather than to double down on the old. It might be time to start pivoting away from an industry that seems to care little for its consumers. It might be important to still have consumers a few generations from now.

Or, if we’re that committed to Big Oil and Gas, we could just force them to fix their damn pipes.

How many disasters will it take? How much damage must we endure? Do we care so little about conserving the world for our children and future generations?

TC Energy abandoned the Keystone XL Pipeline extension after ten years of tenacious protesting finally provoked action from our government. For years before the project failed, TC Energy had assured the public that their engineering was topnotch: Disasters would be averted; the pipes would never leak.

TC Energy also owns the Keystone Pipeline and the 600,000 gallons of tar sands oil that leaked in Kansas a couple of weeks ago. Tar sands oil is the most difficult to clean up — experts estimate that it will take years, not weeks or months, for the site to recuperate.

I wonder how much TC Energy pays their private insurer for disaster recovery? How big is their deductible? When will the math work out for the people who have to breathe that air? Drink that water? Eat food grown on that land?

I don’t know which ruptured pipeline will be the one that finally wakes us up. I don’t know which one will force these companies to be responsible. I don’t know which one will finally send some executives to jail.

But it’s coming.

Adriana E. Ramírez is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: aramirez@post-gazette.com.

First Published: December 25, 2022, 5:00 a.m.

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