Several dozen Norman citizens attended a Wednesday night Board of Adjustment meeting in the city council chambers to voice their concern over a proposed oil pipeline, according to a report by Grant Hermes of News 9.
The Red River Pipeline would stretch 350 miles from Longview, Texas to Cushing, Oklahoma. A portion of the line would run through eastern Norman. Plains All American Pipeline company is set to install the 16-inch wide pipeline that could carry as much as 110,000 gallons of crude oil a day.
Plains All American Pipeline was given a floodplain permit from the City of Norman last month. The permit allows the company to dig under and near sources of water and the floodplain within Norman. Norman has strict floodplain ordinances because Lake Thunderbird is a source of water for the city and several surrounding communities.
Chanting “No water, no life, no Plains Pipeline,” as many as 50 protestors participated in a demonstration during the board meeting. The group objected to the pipeline because of Plains All American’s prior history of regulatory violations, according to News 9.
“Plains All America has kind of a checkered record of whether or not they’ve had leaks and those sorts of things,” said Dr. Stephen Ellis, a professor with the University of Oklahoma. Ellis filed an appeal against the floodplain permit after being told the company did not fill out all the required paperwork. His appeal was dismissed.
The pipeline company has a lengthy record of occupational and safety violations. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, violation reports against Plains All American Pipeline date back to 2008.
The company was recently at the center of a massive oil leak that damaged a beach near Santa Barbara, California in May of 2015. That case led to a remediation process that spanned over several months. The company also paid $44 million in fines associated with the damage.
In a written statement, Plains All American Pipeline responded to the board’s decision to uphold the floodplain permit and the protestors.
“We’re pleased with the action taken by the Board of Adjustment yesterday to uphold our Floodplain Permit for constructing the Red River Pipeline within the City of Norman. We are confident that our application for a Floodplain Permit from the city of Norman was complete, and that the Norman Floodplain Committee properly issued our permit for construction of the Red River Pipeline,” said a company spokesman in the written statement.