North Georgia Fuel Supply Threatened by Pipeline Rupture

Fuel supplies all over the Southeast are being affected by the Colonial pipeline rupture that happened September 9th.  The Colonial pipeline pumps gas from Houston through Alabama into Georgia where the pipeline starts feeding into smaller pipelines that serve the Southeast and the Atlantic states up to New York.  Already gas prices in Georgia are increasing.  From Thursday night to Friday morning, gas rose by an average of 3.1 cents a gallon.  The crisis is expected to come to a head when weekday commutes begin on Monday morning.

Gov. Deal as well as the Governors of Alabama and North Carolina have declared states of emergency due to dwindling fuel supplies.  New York has already sent a tanker ship to the Gulf Coast to retrieve fuel for the state.

The pipeline section that ruptured is south of Birmingham in Shelby County.  There the pipeline runs alongside the Cahaba River, an ecologically sensitive and among the most biologically diverse river systems in the United States.  Luckily, up to today, most fuel was contained in a mine water waste retention area and did not pour into the water.

Colonial does not expect the pipeline disruption to be long term.