Basinkeeper challenges pipeline ops

The now-operational, but apparently still controversial, Bayou Bridge Pipeline’s Louisiana section is again facing a challenge by the environmental group Atchafalaya Basinkeeper. The group is questioning how the pipeline was allowed to begin operating April 1 without having an approved emergency response plan. The state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) indicated they would investigate, but the pipeline’s operations fall under the federal government. The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) said the pipeline is complying with federal regulations. The 163-mile Louisiana segment of the pipeline is transporting oil from Lake Charles to St. James Parish, and has been the subject of several legal challenges over such things as the effects on swamps in the Atchafalaya Delta. The pipeline’s majority owner is the Houston-based Energy Transfer Partners. Phillips 66 Partners owns 40 percent. The Basinkeeper’s “citizen complaint” is asking DNR to enforce a condition, in the pipeline’s state coastal use permit, that the group says requires a “facility response plan” to be in place before it transports oil. that it was looking into the complaint. The fed pipeline agency had informed the environmental group April 11 that Bayou Bridge had not yet submitted the response plan. But in an April 16 letter, submitted as part of motions on behalf of DNR to the state Supreme Court case, a PHMSA official said Energy Transfer Partners had submitted a similar “Integrated Contingency Plan” that includes the Bayou Bridge segment, but had not yet been approved by PHMSA. (Source: NOLA.com 04/22/19)