Chevron pipeline may restart with or without city approval

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SALT LAKE CITY — The pipeline that had two major oil leaks in Red Butte Creek in 2010 may restart soon. Federal regulators have given Chevron the green light.

Chevron has announced its plans to re-open the pipeline next week -- with or without the city's blessing.

Before it could reopen the pipeline, Chevron had to meet several safety requirements from the federal government. Chevron Spokesman Mickey Driver says the company recently completed all of them, and on Jan. 25 put in a formal request to the Federal Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to restart the pipeline.

"Certainly our trust has not been restored with Chevron through the actions that they've taken here this week by deciding to move ahead with a restart when we haven't even had a chance to review and comment on the restart plan," Becker said.

"In the past 24 hours, we've received permission to restart the pipeline," Driver said. Chevron is planning to officially restart it on Feb. 1.

"The company has had ongoing dialogue with the federal agency on its restart plan since mid-December, and the plan submitted today is the result of these discussions and the follow-up actions," Chevron said in a statement dated Tuesday, Jan. 25.

Mayor Ralph Becker and Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon appeared caught off guard Friday by the announcement.

Both mayors are saying the oil company should have talked to them first.

"I am deeply concerned that PHMSA made the decision to approve the pipeline restart without adequate communication with Salt Lake County or Salt Lake City," Corroon said in a statement Friday. "We have not had time to review the full start-up plan to ensure it protects the interests of the Salt Lake Valley." Becker is asking the Chevron Pipe Line Co. to hold off on the restart plan until the city and its outside consultant can "thoroughly evaluate the restart plan."

Becker said the city first saw the company's restart plan late Thursday afternoon.

"Although the pipeline company has federal approval to restart the line, delaying the start up would be appropriate and consistent with previous assurances offered by the company, allowing us time to conduct a thorough and thoughtful review," he said. "Certainly our trust has not been restored in Chevron through the actions that they've taken here this week by deciding to move ahead with the restart when we haven't even had a chance to review and comment on the restart plan."

A pipeline breach on June 12 spilled 33,000 gallons of oil into Red Butte Creek. The spilled oil then traveled downstream to the pond in Liberty Park. A subsequent federal investigation led to a fine of $423,600.

On Dec. 1, a six-inch valve in the same pipeline fractured above Red Butte Gardens, filling a catchment vault with as much as 500 barrels of oil, some of which migrated to about 500 feet from the area affected by the June spill. Fines followed the second spill as well.

The memories of last summer's leak are still fresh on many people's minds. The pond in Liberty Park in downtown Salt Lake City is still very much in clean-up and repair mode. Since the massive spill last summer, an entire portion of the park has been blocked off while crews have worked to fix the damage done by thousands of gallons of oil.

Driver says he understands the residents will be concerned over the pipeline's safety. He says the structural integrity of the pipeline was sound, but human error led to last year's leaks.

"The integrity and safety of the pipeline is something like everything in life, it all boils down to humans doing things correctly," said Driver. "We have now more procedures in place to make sure that human error doesn't enter into creating these kinds of leaks."

Driver said the company gave a copy of its restart plan to Becker's office several days ago and invited the city's input. "The plan was provided to the city's consultant to review on Wednesday, prior to formally giving it to the mayor's office after approval," Driver said.

Becker said Friday evening that giving the plan to an outside consultant is not the same as giving it to his office, and that he did not see the plan until Thursday afternoon.

Becker says assurances from Chevron are not easing his concerns because the city hasn't had a chance to review the restart plan. He feels the company went around the city.

"Certainly our trust has not been restored with Chevron through the actions that they've taken here this week by deciding to move ahead with a restart when we haven't even had a chance to review and comment on the restart plan," Becker said.

The city has questions for both Chevron and federal regulators it plans to explore in a Monday-morning conference call, according to Becker's office.

Chevron said it has performed extensive inspections, modified operational procedures, improved control center leak detection capability and implemented external surveillance processes.

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Story compiled with contributions from Paul Nelson, Steve Fidel and Jennifer Stagg.