Viro campaign to kill another pipeline project in Maine

We NPR listeners, while not necessarily like minded, are way ahead of the curve. This VPR article is from a couple of weeks ago and that's about when I first heard of it. I find it interesting that Merrylyn's story sounds so similar to the VPR piece yet there is no attribution.

One other thing that I find interesting; the VPR piece quotes Ted O'Meara, the Pipe Line's spokesperson as saying there are no plans "on the table" to do a switcheroo. While looking for the NPR story, I found Wiki's link for PPLCO, which cites a non working link to a 2008 MaineToday story saying that PPLCO is looking into it. Maybe they were. Maybe somebody has a shorter route in mind?

Woodcanoe?

There are major misrepresentations about Sawyer's background with this piece. I do not know how long she was employed with Cianbro, but she was terminated from her position with them for "personnel" reasons. She supervised the computer lab at Winthrop Middle School (my nephew was a student there) for a couple of years, but did not teach any courses. I was told by others who worked there that she spent most of the day on the computer, interacting very little with students. She appeared to be somewhat of a "screwball" to some who worked with her.
She has most recently been office manager for RESTORE in Hallowell.

I am still in the process of educating myself on all of this oil so can't speak with any great amount of expertise at the moment, but can offer a few thoughts.

First of all, there are two seperate and distinct places where this crude oil is being taken out of the ground and even though they are not that far apart, they are two completely different kinds of crude oils.

First is the Bakken formation in North Dakota, Montana and Saskatchewan Canada. Here is a map.
This is the "Williston Basin" or the so-called "Bakken shale oil formation". This is the place where the oil that is currently being shipped to St John, NB, in large railroad tank trains that are crossing Maine on a regular basis these days, is coming from. Irving is delighted with this crude and wants lots more of it! Irving has the capacity to unload about 192,000 barrels/day from railroad cars at the moment, and it building more capacity. This is about 3-4 unit trains per day and word is that about 15 trains per week will be running within the next month if all goes well. It is undeniable that Irving in St John is very serious about shipping as much of this Bakken crude to St John as they can! Baaken crude is extracted from the shale formations by a new technique using high pressure water. It does not flow well and I believe that natural gas is mixed with it to some degree so it can be handled easier and flow through pipelines easier.

In Northern Alberta, Canada there exists the "oil sands" (or tar sands as some call it) formations as per this map.

As can be seen on the maps, these two areas are not that far apart, in miles, but are totally different kinds of places. Not all oil from this part of N America is "tar sands oil" by any stretch of the imagination. The oil sands formations are "mined" in many places, by essentially strip mining, as is done for coal in many places.

It is indeed mixed with sand and other things, but is extracted from the earth in a totally different process as opposed to the Bakken oil a few hundred miles away!

Both of these developments are vying for the use of the same transportation systems as he who can get his oil to a market first is way ahead of the other guy. Oil from these areas is currentl being transported by rail and the car builders are working around the clock to build more cars, orders are way in excess of 25,000 new cars at this moment, a phenomenal increase in rail traffic in that part of the world.

Of course pipelines can ship that same oil to the same places for about half the money so one can easily see the economic incentive to build pipelines! There is something very important to understand here and that is the fact that there is a demand to ship this crude oil to the coasts, be it Pacific, Atlantic or Gulf coasts and the reason for that is to be able to export it onto the world market where prices are much higher than in the USA. But this oil is not often exported as crude. It is first "refined" and shipped as finished products to other parts of the world where much higher profits are made. Irving currently ships a considerable portion of its St John production.....to Maine! But will ship it to any place on earth where the profits justify doing same.

The key to this is that this crude must be shipped to the coasts.......where there are refineries! Last I knew there was not much "excess refinery capacity" in Portland, ME and little promise of much being built anytime soon! So I don't think Portland will be a big player in this endeavour. This pipeline was originally built in the early years of WWII because tankers had to carry the crude, by sea routes, from Texas and other southern places, out and around Nova Scotia and into the St lawrence River, to Montreal and other interior places where it would be refined. This water route was, at that moment, the "happy hunting grounds" for German submarines who torpedoed and sank many US tankers within sight of shore. The pipeline became a much safer way to move that oil, then by ship at that moment. But anyone thinking of "reversing" the present pipeline, is facing a daunting task as the amount of oil needed to be moved now, dwarfs anything moved in the early 1940's. short story is that, in my opinion, that line simply is not big enough to be a major player in this market, nor is Portland, ME, the best price to ship crude oil, of one desires vast profits. I think it will likely not happen, but that is just my idea at the present time and things could change someday maybe.

What I think is more likely is a pipeline across Maine, roughly where the east west highway project has been propsed as that is the shortest route to St John, from the midwest. I have no major objection to pipelines as the safety record is quite good, better than any other way of shipping oil in fact.

The real question is do we want to depend in the future, on petroleum products......or not?

If we do wish to continue this usage then we certainly will need to move vast quantities of crude oil around and there are only a couple of ways to do this. We have lots to think about!

WC

Ooops! Pay attention, taxfoe!

Within the Wiki PPLCO link, there is another citation to this, March 17, 2010 (dateline), February 6, 2008 (url), PPH Story . . "Pipeline pondering flow change"

Ooops! Pay attention, OPEC!

Motive from the PPH story:

"In recent years, though, as oilfields in Alberta have increased production, Canada has become less dependent on foreign oil. The amount of oil passing through the pipeline has declined by about 7 million tons over the last four years, Monroe said."

Woodcanoe?

All credit to ewv for cracking this case . . I had forgotten all about it and would not have looked into it if not for the OP. Thanks!

Woodcanoe states "What I think is more likely is a pipeline across Maine, roughly where the east west highway project has been propsed as that is the shortest route to St John, from the midwest."

And that's why I think you've been right all along. I recently posted (somewhere around here) from Sidney, MT, to call attention to the job opportunities there. Sidney has three things going for it: a work ethic, it's proximity to Williston and better rail service than Williston. I visited a Sidney sugar refinery that was also transloading (rail dock to truck dock) fracking sand for Williston!

So, imagine Sidney's cut of the action is a meager x cents per y of unrefined crude. I have no idea what that might mean but I do know there are fleets of every option, every after market option, King Rancher, F series pickups racing through the streets from one job site to the next. OK. Those are cheap. There are 10 x that number of brand new big rigs pulling every kind of trailer imaginable.

Meanwhile, back in Maine, there's a consortium of high mucketty mucks who see a lot of potential in an x of y pipeline of their own and they're probably right. There you have it. Maybe the study of an E/W highway should include an accounting of the economic benefits of the before, during and after of building a pipe line.

As WC saya, a pipeline across Maine would make sense.
Much more sense than tearing out hydro facilities and building windmills that perform 25% or less of the time.
We as a country will not replace our dependance on hydrocarbons until the hysteria over nuclear is quelled.
All four of these energy options are frowned upon by the enviromaniacs, so what to do?
I say drill baby drill, pump baby pump, and split them atoms.

BTW, I've been on vacation in Vegas for a week, and come the weekend, we go to Cali to do some touring.
Today we came back through Tehachapie Pass, and there must have been at least 500-600 of those things of all sizes up there.
About half of them were turning.

Also, coming through the desert, we saw one solar generating facility near Boron,Ca. and another being built just outside Vegas.
Thank you Pelosi and Reid.

So, the question now becomes, what might Ugenetoo, taxfoe, Little Feat and Linda Ronstadt have in common?

If a private business comes up with the idea to build an oil pipeline, across Maine, on the east-west alignment, as I mentioned above, or anywhere else in Maine, and have investors ready to back the idea with money, fine, lets put that idea on the table for public debate and consideration. I have no problem with public discussion of this or any similar idea.

What I do object to, strenuously, is when such an idea may well be in the planning stages by a group of business people, and their financial backers, but rather than be openly debated in front of Maine citizens, it is promoted while masquerading as a road, an idea that many reasonable Maine folks, and several past MDOT studies have shown, makes no economic sense.

I would suggest that many people in Maine are not stupid and still place good value on "openess and honesty", not exactly what we have seen with the current east west "road" proposal.

WC

So, the question now becomes, what might Ugenetoo, taxfoe, Little Feat and Linda Ronstadt have in common?

Neil Armstrong's "first step" was the result of someone's pursuit of one.

A private project on private property should not require public "studies", subsidies or approval at all. Neither should its implementation as long as it does not cause a physical nuisance or damage on other's private property (including state-provided eminent domain power). In particular there is no need or excuse for a state-sponsored "economic study" demanded to determine if private investors should be allowed to fund and execute the project. Private owners and investors determine if investment is economically valuable.

Getting a little rough in here talking crap about Little Feet and Linda R.
You guy's showing your age.
I grew up on them.
Love it.
Tar sand oil is only worth drilling if the market price is up.
Meaning if the price of oil price will stay up where it is, its worth drilling it.
We have to get used to this price, to make us use the product.
I hate this price and know it doesn't need to be this high.
Sweet crude comes from better places then Montana/ Canada.
This is last resort fuel and should have to wait in line.
Lets build refineries, well better ones, and continue on drilling for the good stuff off our coasts.
Instead of other countries.
Those operations we stopped are being replaced with other countries.
Why let them take "our" fuel?
We were taught in school- mind you I'm younger- that oil would run out.
Not so fast.
Tar sands and the "new intervention/ invention" has proven that these same wells can be productive again.
Even better to you envio's, the natural gas, you hate so much that leaves a small imprint on the carbon footprint.
Can take the place of all the damn corn we're burning in our tanks everyday.
By fracking, no I'm not fracking kidding, we can replace ethanol corn.
Our bread would be cheaper.

Ok I could go on.
Maybe we need a new thread or revive an older one.
Funny how everything kinda works together on these things.
The point of the thread looked like how we don't need another pipeline.
True.
We need to drop the prices at the pump.
Best way to do that, invest in refineries and drill off the coast for the good stuff.

Only a total fool burns his food for fuel in his motorcar!

But it is pretty good proof of how well entrenched that "redistribution of wealth systems" are in America.

"Welfare" is not just some poor schmuck in a beat up mobile home, living off the state. Lots of welfare recipients in America.....wear shirts and ties. and live off "government subsidies" also.

WC

But Romney and Ryan are going to change all that and shut down the insanity that is ethanol...right?

Surely the smartest guys in the room, Romney and Ryan, will understand that this is one of the places where we need to let the free market decide what makes sense. It will surely be one of the centerpieces of his convention speech.

I eagerly await hearing Romney attack what everyone with half a brain understands is an insane energy policy.

I mean, this is just one of the reasons that this is the most important election in our lifetime...Right?

Burdock Farm notes: "This is last resort fuel and should have to wait in line."

That's been my guess as to US policy and the 'good stuff' that's supposed to be reasonably accessible, near shore. Let everyone else run out before we get into ours.

Taxfoe

That's always been in the back of my mind as well.

......."Let everyone else run out before we get into ours"........

One of the largest problems with that kind of thinking is that, in the United States, the oil business is NOT "nationalized" as the governement has little control over where that oil is sold, that is pumped (or dug) out of the ground on US soil.

Free trade agreements, and the "free market" have opened up vast foreign markets to US producers of petroleum products. The fact that these products, particularly after being refined, are worth more on the world market, compared to the domestic market, is readily apparent to one who cares to look.

The desire to get all of this crude oil, to refinieries located on the coasts, speak volumes about where it is going to be sold. Diesel fuel is worth a whole lot more per gallon, on the world market, than crude oil is and the people in the oil business, in the USA, are taking every advantage of that that they can.

The "offshoring" of petroleum products, drilled for and refined on US soil, is just as valid an enterprise as Wal Mart "offshoring" the production of most of its retail stock, isn't it?

What do you think the chances are that Obama would just "nationalize" the US oil industry, and keep the stuff here!

WC

Most industry in our country is not nationalized, but it is regulated to death. Those few entrepreneurs and boards of directors still in business are doing it for the love of free private enterprise. They are no longer in it for profit, despite what progressive spokesmen scream in the media. The assault on free enterprise exists right here in Maine. Unlike the Hoover Dam. the Grand Coulee and others out west, all Maine hydroelectric dams were privately owned. With the exception of Flagstaff Lake and Long Falls Dam, no others I know about involved eminent domain. By the way, after that dam was built they never installed any hydro generators.

The progressives in the Maine legislature could not stand the fact that Maine's hydro dams were privately owned. They passed a law that utilities that generated electricity could not sell that electricity to consumers. The legislature put Central Maine Power and Bangor Hydro out of the power generating business. Their dams are now foreign owned. The progressives are forcing the remaining dam owners to remove their dams. When the Edwards Dam just above Augusta on the Kennebec was removed it was a radical environmentalist victory celebration with Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazer in attendance.

You know Green Ken. He brought his traveling rural cleansing show to Maine to help Maine people "reconnect with the outdoors". The reason the environmental industry likes Maine so much is that we landowners have taken such good care of it for the last four centuries. When we quibble about the finer points of energy and the transportation of energy we lose sight of the ultimate goal of the environmental industry. If we listen they tell us what they want.

"Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?"
Maurice Strong, Head of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro

"We reject the idea of private property."
Peter Berle, President of the National Audobon Society

To answer woodcanoes question: Obama nationalized General Motors. He could nationalize the fuel that runs their product if he is reelected.

Roger, you are absolutely right. In fact, Madison Electric is a case in point. They can't sell their power to the grid, but the company that moved to town sure can grow some good tomatoes.

The rivers that private dams screw up are public resources. A private company has no more right to moving water than it does to the fish that swim in it or the animals that drink from it.

Matt Fri, 08/31/2012 - 10:29am #19: "The rivers that private dams screw up are public resources. A private company has no more right to moving water than it does to the fish that swim in it or the animals that drink from it."

Private dams have not "screwed up" the rivers. They are different than what they otherwise would have been without humans. So what.

Where power in the motion of the water was previously unowned, it was properly claimed by those who built dams provided they did not damage existing private property such as through flooding.

"Public resources" precluding private ownership is a false principle. Where there is a potential for conflict in use, properly formulated private ownership rights is the solution. We do not start with the notion of collective ownership and statist control and then conclude that there should be no private ownership because it conflicts with a collectivist premise.

I wonder how long before the use of the solar energy that strikes the earth will be considered a public resource and be controlled by the guvment.
Or the wind that turns these huge boondoggles dotting the landscape.

Matt -

re: The rivers that private dams screw up are public resources. A private company has no more right to moving water than it does to the fish that swim in it or the animals that drink from it.

How about the fields, woods, hills, and dales over which we build roads? How about airplanes that fly through the air? Boats on rivers, lakes, oceans? Submarines under the oceans?

What's the difference?

Thank you.

Best,
skf

I'm wondering how far the eminent domain law passed for CMP extends. Was it limited to the Long Falls Dam only or does it allow CMP to seize other properties for energy projects?

"Eminent Domain" has been used repeatedly in Maine for pubic utility and gas pipeline projects.

Title 35A-Sec 4710, Eminent domain for gas pipeline projects in Maine

Natural gas pipeline crosses Penobscot River at Bucksport-........"Prenda said his company has reached agreements with landowners on more than 93 percent of the land involved in the pipeline.........."We have tried to minimize our use of eminent domain, because we have good faith in the landowners"......

Note in the above that efforts were made to NOT use eminent domain, yet it was used in places, just like with the current building of the new electric transmission line through central Maine.

There is a long history, in Maine, of the use of Eminent Domain by privately held putlic utility companies in order to spread/expand the many utility service companies in Maine. This was exactly why I questioned if Sen Thomas intended to use his proposed "constitutional ammendment" to ban these privately held companies from using eminent domain also. A question to which replied with a simple "Yes".

I think that if a serious attempt is made to ban use of eminent domain by ALL privately held companies in the state of Maine, that that is going to be a long, contentious and agonizing debate, and one that perhaps we should have. But answers will not be simple or easy in coming.

Thanks Roger, for the very interesting information on Flagstaff Lake, I was not aware of many details of that. I am looking forward to the availability of the new book!

That is roughly the era of the construction of Graham Lake dam north of Ellsworth, ME. I do not know to what extent, if any, that eminent domain was used for that project but am interested in finding out. The dam was built, hastily, of dirt, around 1922. Graham Lake serves as a water holding source (a battery more or less) for the hydro electric dam in Ellsworth. This dam collapsed in 1923, flooding Ellsworth and doing around 8 million dollars of damage then. It was rebuilt but is still an earthen dam, carrying state route 180 across the river. It is interesting to note that, due to concerns about the present dam, the MDOT is now into a project to rebuild the road completely on the west side of the river, eliminating the road over the dam.....due to some concerns over the health of said dam, also an earthen dam like its ill fated prececessor.

This "eminent domain" issue has been around in Maine for a long long time. If the corridor proposal brings us to revist this entire issue, I can't believe that it would be a bad thing!

WC

What about the bees?
We should move right now to nationalize the bees that Roxanne enslaved to do her dirty work.
They belong to everybody.

Editor,

What's the difference? Surely you're just playing a rhetorical game, and can see the differences yourself. Your list of analogies is sort of faulty. None of the uses you cite monopolize a resource in a particular way or change the nature of the resource. On the contrary--I'm sure you're aware that individuals in Maine actually have the right to access navigable rivers; a dam, however, takes away one's ability to use it for movement. What would you say if a business erected a barrier that actually prevented your ability to fly out of Maine, were that possible?

And EWV's "so what" response is cavalier, given that the effect of the change is more than simply aesthetic. When water quality and fecundity deteriorate, it affects lots of individuals who have staked their own claims on other resources the river provides. For instance, a lot of individuals depend on the biomass that feeds the commercial fishing industry, and this is tied directly into the health of rivers.

Ugenetoo,

Would you be cool with an enterprising individual moving into your area, feeding the deer, and then claiming these previously "collectivist" wards of the state as their own?

Editor Sat, 09/01/2012 - 6:09am #22: "Matt - 're: The rivers that private dams screw up are public resources. A private company has no more right to moving water than it does to the fish that swim in it or the animals that drink from it.'

"How about the fields, woods, hills, and dales over which we build roads? How about airplanes that fly through the air? Boats on rivers, lakes, oceans? Submarines under the oceans? What's the difference?"

Roads, airplanes, boats, radio transmitters polluting the air waves -- they all have to go: They are all evil "human foot prints" in fields, woods, hills and dales, the electromagnetic spectrum and, shudder, everywhere -- disturbing "pre-Columbian" nature regarded as an 'intrinsic' value superseding human values, goals, rights, industrial civilization, and life beyond the most primitive stone-age form with its only minimal "footprint". The dreaded civilized humans and their "footprints", intrinsically inferior to "nature", are not a "natural" part of this earth. We came from outside the universe by our own evil will. Back to your cave, you evil footprinter you.

Matt Sat, 09/01/2012 - #26: "Editor, What's the difference? Surely you're just playing a rhetorical game, and can see the differences yourself. Your list of analogies is sort of faulty. None of the uses you cite monopolize a resource in a particular way or change the nature of the resource."

He is not "playing a rhetorical game", and if you want to engage in serious discussion here you should start taking seriously what people explain and point out to you despite, and because, they refute your conventional collectivist and viro slogans.

Everything anyone uses "monopolizes" it, though that is the wrong use of that economic term. Any use or extraction of natural resources "changes" it. So what? That does not negate property rights or their possibility.

"On the contrary--I'm sure you're aware that individuals in Maine actually have the right to access navigable rivers; a dam, however, takes away one's ability to use it for movement. What would you say if a business erected a barrier that actually prevented your ability to fly out of Maine, were that possible?"

You are very confused about the order in which these things happened and the reasons for them. Laws have evolved and been codified to include all kinds of improperly imposed "government-given" collectivist entitlements in the name of "rights" while progressively undermining and destroying rights of individuals. Yet still, no one has a "right" to "navigate" a waterway through a dam previously recognized as private property, although the viros are imposing 'fish rights' to destroy dams.

Neither does private property mean that anyone can imprison someone else by obstructing his movement -- by arbitrarily claiming to own the atmosphere, putting up 'airplane blockers', dropping a cage over him, or any other such absurd means -- any more than ownership of a gun could mean the "property right" to go around shooting people. You treat principles as intrinsic out of context absolutes from which you rationalize and project the most absurd "conclusions". You have no grasp of the meaning of principles and context or how to discuss them.

Would you be cool with an enterprising individual moving into your area, feeding the deer, and then claiming these previously "collectivist" wards of the state as their own?

That's basically what Roxanne Quimby is doing, now isn't it.