Water Crossing Permit Process Begun In Keystone XL Pipeline Project
Contractors for the Keystone XL pipeline has begun, with a joint public notice published beginning the process of obtaining individual water crossing permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s Omaha District, the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy.
Keystone XL crosses the Missouri River in Montana downstream of the Fort Peck spillway, where it would be trenched across federal property that is administered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which means it requires a Section 408 permit.
The water crossing permits had originally been granted under Nationwide Permit No. 12, a system where the planning agencies meet certain, preset criteria, adding specific conditions as needed.
In April, a judge from the Ninth District ruled that reliance on this type of permitting system did not provide an adequate assessment of the risks to pallid sturgeon or the American burying beetle, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act.
TC Energy, the Keystone contractor, subsequently filed an application for the individual permit it will need to finish construction of the line in July, according to the published notice of pending permit, which lays out the project’s details and invites public comments. A representative for the US Army Corps of Engineers said the agency will take public comments on the subject through Sept. 13.
A series of four public hearings are expected to land somewhere between the end of September and early October. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these hearings will be held via telephone. Each hearing will require a 30-day notice. That puts the project on a 120-day timeline to complete this process, which would mean the earliest the company could get approval is in mid to late December.
In July, TC Energy said it does not anticipate changing its 2023 completion date. The Trump administration updated the permits for the existing Keystone pipeline to increase its capacity from 590,000 barrels per day to 760,000.
TC Energy, formerly Transcanada, first proposed Keystone XL in 2008 to carry up to 830,000 barrels of crude oil per day to Nebraska. From there, it could access existing pipelines for shipment to the Gulf of Mexico.
The Obama administration twice rejected the pipeline, citing the potential to worsen climate change, but Trump invited the company to resubmit its application.
