Hurricanes and Oil Pipelines

Officials in the Gulf Coast are assessing damage left by Hurricane Gustav yesterday. Officials were bracing for a repeat of the epic failure of the levy system following Hurricane Katrina three years ago.

Though the levies and flood walls held up this time, Gustav still left plenty of destruction in its wake. Mayor Ray Nagin is asking evacuated residents to stay put while crews work to restore power to the 80,000-plus homes that lost electricity. And Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is asking the federal government to open up its strategic oil reserve to fuel recovery efforts and to fill the tanks of returning citizens. Jindal says it could be days before oil companies can assess the damage to their operations in the Gulf.

The region handles about 25 percent of the nation’s domestic oil production and about 15 percent of its natural gas output. Any harm to that infrastructure will affect oil prices nationwide. But our next guest says it’s not just the rigs and refineries we have to worry about - it’s the pipelines that pump the product from the Gulf to the mainland that cause more concern. After Hurricane Katrina, about 8 million gallons of oil were lost through the pipes - compare that to 11 million gallons after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Nancy Kinner is co-director of the Coastal Response Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, where she’s also professor of civil and environmental engineering. She joins Word of Mouth to discuss cleaning up the oil damage caused by hurricanes.

(Photo by vphill)