The giant bancorporation has just amended its Environmental Responsibility Policy to ban funding oil and gas pipelines.

According to its new guidelines, “The company does not provide project financing for the construction of oil or natural gas pipelines. Relationships with clients in the oil and gas pipeline industries are subject to the Bank’s enhanced due diligence processes.”

And part of the bank’s enhanced due diligence will be to consider the projects they fund by their environmental impact on indigenous people.

The additional due diligence focuses on: “Past and present environmental compliance with laws and regulations, internal framework related to environmental risk management, and potential impact on dependent communities and indigenous people.”

Industries or sectors include coal mining, forestry, unconventional oil and gas production, hydraulic fracturing, oil sands, Arctic, Alaska, or offshore oil extraction, metals mining, electric power generation, nuclear, coal and hydroelectric.

The bank says it is not one of 17 banks that have financed DAPL directly, but admits it is part of a group of 26 banks that have funded lines of credit to Energy Transfer Partners, the owner of DAPL, “for general corporate purposes.”


It does not appear as if U.S. Bank will pull out of its current commitment, as it says in its sustainability fact sheet “We are obligated to fulfill our contract with ETF.”

According to an Energy Transfer Partners filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, U.S. Bank National Association has committed $175 million to a line of credit.

The $450 billion asset bank, based in Minneapolis and the fifth largest bank in the United States, suffered considerable bad publicity when protestors unveiled a giant banner in the U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis during a football game on January 1. The stadium is home to the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League.

The 10 foot by 40 foot banner read “U.S. Bank DIVEST #NoDAPL.”

There is at least one more item in the bank’s new environmental responsibility policy that relates to Natives.

Under the forestry section the bank states “We do not finance forestry operations that negatively impact indigenous people and/or dependent communities without the provision of culturally appropriate representation.”

The bank prides itself on its environmental awareness and says “In 2016 alone, through the U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corp., we committed more than $1.5 billion in renewable energy projects throughout the U.S. Those investments helped power more than 300,000 homes and employ more than 22,000 people. In addition, the carbon off-set of these investments is equal to taking more than 445,000 cars off the road or planting about 2 million acres of forest.”
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Leak raises fresh concerns about hazards to waterways and outrages indigenous groups, who have long warned of threat to environment

The Dakota Access pipeline has suffered its first leak, outraging indigenous groups who have long warned that the project poses a threat to the environment.

The $3.8bn oil pipeline, which sparked international protests last year and is not yet fully operational, spilled 84 gallons of crude oil at a South Dakota pump station, according to government regulators.

Although state officials said the 6 April leak was contained and quickly cleaned, critics of the project said the spill, which occurred as the pipeline is in the final stages of preparing to transport oil, raises fresh concerns about the potential hazards to waterways and Native American sites.

“They keep telling everybody that it is state of the art, that leaks won’t happen, that nothing can go wrong,” said Jan Hasselman, a lawyer for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which has been fighting the project for years. “It’s always been false. They haven’t even turned the thing on and it’s shown to be false.”

The April spill, which was first uncovered this week by a local South Dakota reporter, illustrates the need for the more robust environmental assessment that the tribe has long demanded, said Hasselman.


“It doesn’t give us any pleasure to say, ‘I told you so.’ But we have said from the beginning that it’s not a matter of if, but when,” the Earthjustice attorney told the Guardian on Wednesday. “Pipelines leak and they spill. It’s just what happens.”

Brian Walsh, an environmental scientist with the South Dakota department of environment and natural resources, said the spill was relatively minor and was caused by a mechanical failure at a surge pump.

“It’s not uncommon to have a small release at a pump station,” he said, adding that the company responded immediately and cleaned up the liquid petroleum. The spill occurred inside a “secondary containment area” and there were no environmental impacts, he added.


Standing Rock Sioux tribe chairman Dave Archambault II said the spill is another sign that the courts should intervene.

“Our lawsuit challenging this dangerous project is ongoing, and it’s more important than ever for the court to step in and halt additional accidents before they happen – not just for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and our resources but for the 17 million people whose drinking water is at risk,” he said in a statement.

The company and the state made no announcements about the spill after it occurred.

Walsh said the department only releases public notices of spills when there is an imminent threat to a waterway or public health. This was the pipeline’s first spill in the state, he said.


Energy Transfer Partners did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. A spokeswoman told the Associated Press that the corporation maintains that the pipeline is safe and that the leak was contained in the proper manner. The Associated Press also reported that no other Dakota Access spills have been documented in any other states.

The company has fought in court to keep information about the status of the project confidential.

Hasselman said these kinds of spills should be immediately disclosed.

“What kind of oversight and accountability is there if no one even finds out about these things until weeks later?”
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Energy Transfer Partners' new Rover Pipeline has spilled millions of gallons of drilling fluids into Ohio's wetlands. Construction of the $4.2 billion project only began last month.

According to regulatory filings obtained by Sierra Club Ohio, on April 13, 2 million gallons of drilling fluids spilled into a wetland adjacent to the Tuscarawas River in Stark County. The next day, another 50,000 gallons of drilling fluids released into a wetland in Richland County in the Mifflin Township. The spills occurred as part of an operation associated with the pipeline's installation.

Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners is the same operator behind the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline.

The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the Rover Pipeline's construction in February. The 713-mile pipeline will carry fracked gas across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Michigan and Canada, and crosses three major rivers, the Maumee, Sandusky and Portage, all of which feed into Lake Erie. The pipeline is designed to transport 3.25 billion cubic feet of domestically produced natural gas per day.

Completion of the Rover Pipeline is planned for November 2017. Energy Transfer spokeswoman Alexis Daniel told Bloomberg that the spills will not change the project's in-service date.

"Once the incidents were noted, we immediately began containment and mitigation and will continue until the issues are completely resolved," she said.


Environmental groups are fighting to stop the pipeline's construction.

"Construction just began just a few weeks ago, yet Energy Transfer has already spilled more than 2 million gallons of drilling fluids in two separate disasters, confirming our worst fears about this dangerous pipeline before it has even gone into operation," said Jen Miller, director of the Ohio chapter of the Sierra Club.


"We've always said that it's never a question of whether a pipeline accident will occur, but rather a question of when. These disasters prove that the fossil fuel industry is unable to even put a pipeline into use before it spills dangerous chemicals into our precious waterways and recreation areas.

"Construction on the Rover Pipeline must be stopped immediately, as an investigation into Energy Transfer's total failure to adequately protect our wetlands and communities is conducted."
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Cleanup efforts are underway after a failed Chevron Corporation pipeline released about 4,800 gallons of oil into an intermittent stream on public land in northwestern Colorado and killed some wildlife.

The breach happened on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land and was first detected on March 5 by a Chevron consultant. The pipeline was shut down after discovery of the leak and the oil is now trapped in a berm and siphon dam in a dry ravine, according to the Associated Press.

As it happens, the leak occurred around the same time that the conservation group Center for Western Priorities found that Chevron was behind 31 reported spills in Colorado last year, ranking the energy corporation as the fourth highest oil and gas spiller in the state.

Chevron spokeswoman Erika Conner said that while there are no public health concerns after the March 5 incident, some animals have died. Two mallard ducks covered in oil were found at the spill site and were transferred to Colorado Parks and Wildlife on March 5 but died the day after. Two other small birds and several mice have also been found dead by cleanup crews.

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been notified," Conner told The Daily Sentinel. "We regret the impact the release has had on the affected animals and are working diligently to avoid any additional impacts to wildlife."

Colorado Department of Natural Resources spokesman Todd Hartman told the AP that the failed section of pipeline is being analyzed to determine a cause.


The spill involved a 6-inch-diameter oil gathering pipeline, BLM spokesman David Boyd told The Daily Sentinel.

In its recent report, the Center for Western Priorities calculated available data from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and determined there were 509 reported spills in 2016—that's more than one a day in Colorado.

The number of spills in 2016 are less than the 615 reported spills and incidents in 2015, reflecting the decrease in drilling activity. However, the group expects spills to increase as the state ramps up oil and gas production.


"As drilling and production increase in Colorado—which is expected as the price of oil and gas may increase in the coming years—we also expect to see spills increase," the report said. "Monitoring these incidents help to inform Coloradans about the impacts of oil and gas development within the state."

In response to the report, Chevron said in a statement that it "aggressively manages the risk of spills through a rigorous ongoing asset integrity program wherever we operate."

"For example, Chevron has undertaken a comprehensive, multi-year, multi-million-dollar project to streamline and upgrade facilities and systems at our largest Colorado asset in Rangely," the company continued. "The program will continue through 2018. To date, approximately 11 miles of pipes have been removed from service."
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The city became the fifth in the U.S. to divest from companies and banks that are involved in the oil project.

San Francisco became the latest U.S. city to divest from companies and banks involved in the Dakota Access pipeline, selling US$1.2 billion in investments as Native American tribes push for a divestment campaign against the controversial oil project.

The move was approved unanimously Tuesday by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors after Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer introduced a resolution calling for divestment from all the banks that have lent money to the Dakota Access.

The resolution states that City Treasurer Jose Cisneros must now add the pipeline to the list of screening factors when making city investment decisions. Fewer’s resolution urges Cisneros to act “with expediency,” the San Francisco CBS Radio reported Tuesday.

“Let’s hope that our action today in passing this resolution adds volume to the voices across the country condemning the Dakota Access Pipeline,” Fewer said.

He added that the resolution would see the city divesting almost 14 percent of the city’s investments, or about US$1.2 billion, that are providing financing to the project.


San Francisco's vote is the latest development in a national fossil fuel divestment effort called Go Fossil Free. The movement seeks to stop fossil fuel companies from exploring for new sources of hydrocarbon-based energy, end fossil fuel corporate lobbying for special privileges and secure a pledge from them to keep 80 percent of their current reserves underground forever.
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Here is a visual exploration of the environmental consequences of oil production and refineries across America – as told through the work and words of nine photographers.

The irreversible damage of oil extraction to the earth’s ecology is already evident. But when plans for the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines were revived in the first days of the new administration, it became clear that America, the insatiable consumer, would not be turning green any time soon – one more chapter in a centuries-long battle over land and resources.

Health and Culture of Poor Communities Ian Willms. Ian Willms has spent years closely documenting the impact of oil production on First Nations of northern Alberta.

“The oil industry consumes the ecology. It poisons the water, it eats up the land, it displaces the natural migrations of caribou and moose and other animals that the nearby First Nation communities rely on.

There are a lot of health problems, for instance an extremely rare form of bile duct cancer is being found at a very high rate. I’ve photographed a funeral for a miscarried infant and a young boy named Dez, aged seven, who has had numerous open-heart surgeries. The local doctor believes it is all caused by industrial pollution.

Once the fur trade dried up and the fish were deemed unfit to sell at market because of pollution, welfare benefits and the oil industry became the community’s main sources of income. This forces a lot of people into a pretty bitter compromise. It’s been an ongoing process of assimilation since the colonists first arOil Spills and Leakages Alyssa Schukarrived and the oil industry has sped that up.



Air Pollution Alex Maclean. In 2014, Alex MacLean used aerial photography to document the supply and demand of both ends of oil production – from the Alberta Tar Sands down to the Texas Gulf refineries.


Deforestation Jiri Rezac Jiri Rezac began photographing the Alberta Tar Sands 10 years ago, mapping the impact of development on the surrounding ecology.


Oil Spills and Leakages Alyssa Schukar: Alyssa Schukar has closely documented the environmental legacy of oil production on East Chicago communities and photographed on assignment at Standing Rock.


Environmental Pollution Peter Essick. Peter Essick’s series on Alberta Tar Sands studied the damage of oil extraction on the land, rivers and downstream communities.


Desecration of Sacred Lands Daniella Zalcman. Daniella Zalcman‘s Pulitzer-Center funded project, Signs of Your Identity, reveals the damage of the residential school system on indigenous communities. Many of her subjects and their relatives travelled to Standing Rock to stand in solidarity with the Sioux Reservation.


Treaty Rights Camille Seaman. Camille Seaman is an indigenous environmental photographer who spent several months at Standing Rock, documenting the developing story through Native eyes.


The Cattle Industry Jeff Jacobson In September 2016, Jeff Jacobson travelled the route of the Keystone XL pipeline, capturing the land, livestock and people who will be affected by its development.


American Power Mitch Epstein Mitch Epstein‘s American Power series examines how energy is produced and used in the American landscape and how it influences American lives.
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