TC Energy, formerly known as TransCanada, has yet another large pipeline spill.

Last week, a section of the Keystone 1 pipeline ruptured, this time on the Kansas-Nebraska border. Early estimates are 14,000 barrels (588,000 gallons).

That toxic blend of Canadian tar sands, diluted with toxic lighter hydrocarbons, flowed down a slope and into a creek.

To TC Energy’s credit, they were able to detect the drop in the pipeline’s pressure readings and shut the pipeline down fairly quickly, which has not always been the case on Keystone’s multiple oil spills. In fact, this is the 22nd spill on the Keystone 1 since it went into operation in 2010.

For me, it all began in 2009 and 2010 in York, Nebraska, where I was publisher of their local paper, the York News-Times.

TransCanada was spending a lot of money promoting the benefits of their new endeavor, the Keystone XL pipeline that would run from Alberta, Canada to refineries in Port Arthur, Texas. The pipeline would cross Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska to Steele City, Nebraska, where some would be diverted to Illinois and the rest on to Cushing, Oklahoma, then to the refineries in Port Arthur.

TransCanada was hosting an open house at our local Civic Auditorium to tell all of us how great the pipeline would be, and, of course, I was there to learn more about the project.

Soon after that, TransCanada visited our newspaper office — their first of many, many visits to follow. They told us it would create 20,000 construction jobs and an additional 118,000 indirect jobs, and the millions it would pay in local property taxes for the first 15 years.

Well, those numbers sounded enormous to me, so the York News-Times began what turned out be a years-long effort to find out the real facts, and it turned out TransCanada was being let’s just say not exactly truthful with many of their claims.

Then, in 2010, Michiganders will remember well, the Enbridge Inc. spill of a million gallons of tar sand oil into the Kalamazoo River, which took over five years and a billion dollars to clean up. Why? Because tar sand oil is really not oil at all. It is exactly what it says, tar and sand, and, unlike crude oil, it sinks in water. To pump it through a pipe, it must be diluted, and that’s where the problems begin. The diluent is laced with benzene, which causes cancer and birth defects.

So, as we learned more about the Keystone XL, it became obvious that the risks of that pipeline far outweighed the benefits. So I, along with many Nebraskans, began to fight the project.

There were a lot of reasons, but none more important to me than that the KXL, full of that benzene-laced tar sand, would have crossed over 200 miles of the Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies drinking and irrigation water to people in eight states.

OK, I know many of you will think fighting the KXL was stupid, especially now, when gasoline prices are so high. I hear constantly that we shouldn’t have canceled the KXL because we sure could use that oil now.

Well, folks, that, too, is not the whole truth.

The truth is that most of that toxic slurry was headed to the world market. It was to be refined in Port Arthur, then exported. China had invested over $30 billion into the Canadian tar sands. The pipeline in Nebraska would be four feet underground — directly above, or, in some cases, directly in the Ogallala Aquifer, and a spill would be catastrophic. The number of jobs created by the KXL after completion would be 35. Fifteen would be in Nebraska … yes, only 15. The local property taxes counties so wanted would be fully depreciated after 15 years, and those counties would be left with an aging pipeline and no tax revenue.

There are more reasons.

Why would we allow a foreign corporation to use eminent domain to take control of a farmer’s or rancher’s land just to increase profits to their shareholders? The easement proposed by TransCanada lasted forever — yes, forever. If you could have seen what I saw at State Department hearings — landowners, many of whom had the land in their families for generations, passionately testified that that should never be allowed, that they are the best stewards of the land and it is up to them to protect it for generations to come. Many were brought to tears as they testified, and it became clear that the KXL project was doomed.

Ten years later, TransCanada pulled the plug on the project.

And now yet another spill. It seems TC Energy and Enbridge have a difficult time keeping oil in the pipes.

But wait, isn’t there the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund that collects 9 cents per barrel to help fund cleanups? Yes, there is, but guess what? The House Ways and Means Committee years ago determined tar sand was neither oil nor petroleum, and therefore not subject to the tax. What? The dirtiest oil on the planet, the hardest to clean up after a spill, does not have to pay into the cleanup fund, but every other oil does? Now that’s stupid.

The Keystone l, which just spilled in Kansas, should have been generating $15 million a year into that fund. But, nope, it does not.

Nebraska was right in stopping the Keystone XL. From day one, they claimed it to be “all risk, no reward,” and they were right. If we are going to continue pumping oil thousands of miles through pipelines, then the government must greatly enhance their oversight and safety measures, insisting on better monitoring, maintenance, enforcement, and compliance from the oil transporters.

Just for the record, according to the federal pipeline agency, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, in the last 20 years, there have been 7,717 spills, totaling over 80 million gallons, and cleanup costs are over $4 billion.

TC Energy and Enbridge, clean up your act.