The Wyoming company responsible for January’s oil spill into the Yellowstone River near Glendive, Montana is hoping to build another oil pipeline, this time in North Dakota.
The Public Service Commission is holding a hearing for Bridger Pipeline Company’s project in Belfield. And as Emily Guerin reports, labor unions are planning on testifying against it.
Evan Whiteford of the Laborers International Union of North America is the first to say he’s not opposed to pipelines. In fact, labor unions are vocal supporters of the Dakota Access and Sandpiper pipelines.
“But we support the pipelines being done correctly and safely.”
That’s why he’s against Bridger’s new pipeline proposal in southwestern North Dakota. Whiteford says the company has a bad track record with spills. It’s incident rate is nearly double the industry average, according to the non-profit watchdog group Pipeline Safety Trust. Whiteford says spills and shoddy construction make landowners wary of all new pipelines.
“It’s been making it difficult for the good companies out there doing who good quality work to get their pipelines into place.”
And that makes it difficult for his union members to get work building those pipelines. Bridger’s lawyer did not return a call for comment.
