SEATTLE — U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell on Friday demanded answers from BP about a leak that has shut down a major fuel pipeline in the Pacific Northwest, threatening fuel supplies for planes at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport as well as a potential increase in gasoline prices heading into the busy Thanksgiving weekend.
The 400-mile (644-kilometer) Olympic Pipeline is the backbone of the region’s system for moving gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other petroleum products from refineries near the Canadian border to distribution terminals in the Pacific Northwest west of the Cascades, including major population centers in Washington and Oregon.
The pipeline system has been closed since Monday, following intermittent shutdowns after a leak was discovered near Everett, north of Seattle, on November 11.
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson declared a state of emergency earlier this week, waiving some safety restrictions on truck drivers to allow more jet fuel to be transported to the airport by land, and his office said Friday that the measure works to help more fuel reach the airport. Cantwell noted that it takes 90 trucks a day to deliver half the fuel the airport uses.
Major airlines said Friday that the closure has not yet disrupted travel at the airport, which is expected to handle about 900,000 passengers over the Thanksgiving holiday, according to Cantwell.
“With so much reliance on reliable transportation of fuel through your system, pipeline safety and operational safety must be top priorities,” the senator wrote to BP CEO Murray Auchincloss.
Responding crews have excavated two pipelines along the Snohomish River and there is no timetable for them to be restarted, BP said in a written statement.
“The safety of employees, the environment and the community remains our top priority,” BP spokeswoman Christina Odisho wrote.
Alaska Airlines said it is preparing contingency plans in case the shutdown starts to impact operations, including flights arriving at Sea-Tac with extra fuel so they don’t need to fill up at the airport.
Portland International Airport does not expect any problems because it can bring in jet fuel by barge, unlike Seattle, officials said.
It is still unclear how much fuel leaked. Cleanup efforts include deploying vacuum trucks and removing contaminated soil, Washington Department of Ecology spokeswoman Jasmine Adams said in an email. Neither BP nor state officials reported any pollution in the nearby river.
Among the questions Cantwell insisted were whether BP’s address was the cause of the leak, what BP was doing to mitigate it, when was the pipeline last inspected in the area, and what effect the shutdown would have on regional gas prices.
Previous pipeline closures have sent gas prices soaring in Washington and Oregon.
The pipeline has a long history of leaks, including a 1999 fireball that killed three young men hiking along a creek in Bellingham, Washington. The incident led to a sweeping overhaul of federal pipeline regulation.
In 2023A spill near Conway, north of Seattle, sent about 25,000 gallons (95,000 liters) of gasoline into nearby creeks that support salmon and other wildlife.
Kenneth Clarkson, a spokesman for the Pipeline Safety Trust, a pipeline safety education and lobbying organization founded after the Bellingham explosion, noted in an email Friday that equipment failures were responsible for 21 Olympic pipeline spills since 1999.
“These incidents caused property losses exceeding $100 million,” Clarkson wrote. “Olympic Pipeline should explain what has changed and what they are doing to stop it.”