The former head of the federal government’s top pipeline safety watchdog is challenging the findings of recent analysis of the Dakota Access Pipeline authored by pay-for-play consultant Richard Kuprewicz and funded by Earthjustice.
Brigham McCown, a former head of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and current advisor to the MAIN Coalition, refuted many of Kuprewicz’s assumptions and questions the overall manner in which the analysis was conducted.
“My concerns with Mr. Kuprewicz’s report include a lack of understanding and respect for accepted methodology, inferring that an absence of risk is demonstrative of risk, and the inability to accept the importance of the safe transportation of America’s energy,” McCown wrote. “The overall Kuprewicz report runs directly counter to best practices, does not keep with accepted norms, and should not be relied upon when discussing the Dakota Access Pipeline Project.”
McCown proceeds to detail and correct the myriad of errors and false assumptions that Kuprewicz made, including the lack of scientifically accepted methodology, using absence of risk to indicate risk, and disregard for the necessity of petroleum-based resources.
After reviewing both the Army Corps Environmental Assessment and the Earthjustice assessment, McCown concluded that the, “Earthjustice report lacks credibility and was, from its conception, a report designed to undermine confidence in the Dakota Access Pipeline Project as opposed to a paper realistically designed to review the government’s work and decision to fully permit the project.”
Click here to read McCown’s full review.