dagblog - Comments for "Massive piles of petroleum coke on U.S. - Canadian border"

This is an interesting story,

A Guy Called LULU — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 03:33:18 +0000

This is an interesting story, Flower. And it aint over yet. Glad you are staying with it. We touched upon the problems of shipping so much waste along with the product on Donal's blog the other day. Everything seems to be speculation and guessing. I cannot imagine a pipeline going many miles with no slope carrying that much solid crap, suspended in a mixture that needs to be kept quite warm to remain fluid enough to keep flowing, not having major problems sooner or later. Maybe it looks easy to them because sitting somewhere looking at a map on the wall it looks like the pipe runs straight down. But, it is apparently working according to plan so far.
So, we have oil leaving the refinery and mountains of coke waiting to be shipped off to be burned to give us a visual of a short time accumulation of one part of the total. I wonder how big a lake all the water that is polluted with chemicals used to help keep the whole thing goin' would make? Where is it? That river looks mighty handy.
There are estimates out about the carbon release from tar sands oil. I guess that burning this petroleum coke has been figured in, but from my semi-attention to the subject, I hadn't heard of it or of any bi-product also being used as fuel.

The statement from the

wabby — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 02:32:18 +0000

In reply to I love this quote from the

The statement from the Marathon man struck me, too. Akin to saying, "Move along folks...nothing to see here."

Another odd thing. This story is NOT reported in any U.S. newspaper or on any tv news outlet. It's all Canadian papers and CBC. One mention in Deadline Detroit quoting the Star article.

It's like the U.S. is being willfully stupid about this.

True, there are multiple

acanuck — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 21:49:04 +0000

In reply to Ah, but that site is owned by

True, there are multiple entities involved in this: Marathon, CSX, Transflo and Moroun. Any one of which can claim "not my responsibility." But Moroun owns the land, and presumably leased it for a specific purpose. If that purpose breaks environmental laws or causes liability, the courts will have to sort out who's responsible.

Since the petcoke is piling up while awaiting shipment, my guess is that Marathon still owns the stuff, so their spokesman's claim is important. Just dumping it on property leased by someone else from someone else doesn't wipe the slate clean.

Ah, but that site is owned by

Verified Atheist — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 19:53:35 +0000

In reply to I love this quote from the

Ah, but that site is owned by Matty Moroun and leased by CSX railway, and CSX affiliate Transflo is the one storing the petcoke there. I'm not sure what Marathon has to do with the story, other than having a spokeperson willing to speak on the record about how they store petcoke.

I love this quote from the

acanuck — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 18:46:32 +0000

In reply to Massive piles of petroleum coke on U.S. - Canadian border

I love this quote from the Marathon Oil spokesman:

Marathon “goes above and beyond regulations” while handling petcoke on site, Daniels said. “It a very powdery substance so it’s kept in bins or covered to keep it from blowing around. Everything is covered and kept tight. It’s not something volatile or toxic, but since it is a fine powder there is a messiness factor when dealing with it.”

Has this guy ever been to the site, or seen a photo of it?

All of this on the same stretch of riverfront that includes Zug Island and the Ambassador Bridge. The island is itself infamous as the source of noise pollution -- the mysterious Zug Island hum -- that has driven Windsor residents batty for years. Billionaire Matty Moroun, who owns the land the petcoke is stored on, also owns the bridge, sole link to Canada, and recently tried to block construction of a rival crossing.

Nice neighbors.

I was about to say

Verified Atheist — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 00:29:48 +0000

In reply to Massive piles of petroleum coke on U.S. - Canadian border

I was about to say "unbelievable", but unfortunately it's all-too-believable.