Rows of pipe that will become part of TransCanada’s massive Keystone Pipeline System have been delivered in recent weeks to a rural field west of Winfield.
The pipe will be stored at its present location ? just south of U.S. 160 near the former South Vernon school ? until work in Cowley County begins. Loads of the pipe needed here arrived in Oxford by rail and were transported to the makeshift pipe yard, county officials said.
County manager Leroy Alsup said the county allowed TransCanada to bring the building materials in even though the county has yet to negotiate a final contract with the company to allow right of way easements necessary for work to begin. The pipe would have caused a glut at the rail yard had it stayed there, he said.
Alsup thinks it’s unlikely work on the project will get started before fall. Pipe has arrived in shipments over the last six to eight weeks.
A TransCanada representative reached by phone referred all calls about project scheduling to a public relations representative for the company. That person was not immediately available for comment late Monday.
The pipeline project includes the construction of a substation near Udall.
To learn more about the project, click here.
BIG WORK
Although nearly all the pipe will be placed in trenches on private property the county must give its blessing for the pipeline to cross below county roads and bridges. TransCanada will dig trenches on private land but bore under any roads and bridges that need crossed, according to county engineer Dale Steward.
"The county and Keystone are working out final details of the contract," Steward said.
The pipeline will run roughly 33 miles from the north end of Cowley County to the Oklahoma border. Alsup said he expects the work will begin no later than the fall of this year. Phase I of the pipeline project begins in Canada and continues south into the U.S where it runs for over 1,000 miles, as far south as Oklahoma and east to Illinois.
TransCanada will have the capacity to pump 591,000 barrels of oil a day through Phase 1 of the pipeline which stops to the south in Cushing, Okla.
Both Steward and Alsup said that the work would be large in scale and easily visible to passers by. Crews will dig large trenches to bury pipe that is 36 inches in diameter. The pipe has to have six feet of dirt over the top of it.
"It’s a sizable project," Steward said. "That’s some very big pipe."
Because of that there will be some inconveniences, he said. No roads will close but there are likely to be times when traffic will slow or be controlled while boring is done.
The pipeline project is not without controversy. Alsup has joined state leaders and officials from other counties in protesting a tax abatement TransCanada received for the Keystone project.
The pipeline passes through North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska before arriving in Kansas.
