Company seeking permission to build new pipeline underestimates worst case spill

The company that is seeking permission to build a new crude oil pipeline between Canada and the U.S. Gulf Coast has wildly underestimated the damage that could occur in a worst case spill scenario, a University of Nebraska researcher warned this week.

Even a small, undetected leak from an underground rupture of the pipeline in the Nebraska Sandhills could pollute almost 5 billion gallons of groundwater with benzene at concentrations exceeding safe drinking water levels,” University of Nebraska researcher John Stansbury said.