NEW YORK - North Dakota's Public Service Commission picked an engineering firm to inspect construction work along the eastern North Dakota path of the Keystone crude oil pipeline.
The commission, during a special meeting Wednesday, said it intends to award the job to Kadrmas, Lee & Jackson, a firm that has seven North Dakota offices.
The contract says the company will be paid up to $73,270 for its work. The pipeline's developer, TransCanada Corp., of Calgary, Alberta, will pay for the inspections.
Commissioner Kevin Cramer said the firm's job will be to make sure rules set out in TransCanada's pipeline construction permit are followed. In its February route order, the commission said it intended to hire an inspector to monitor the pipeline's installation.
The permit includes specifics about how the pipeline is to be built and procedures for digging river crossings and replacing trees and shrubs. It says the 30-inch oil pipeline must be buried at least 48 inches deep.
The engineering firm will make sure, for example, that "streams are being properly cut, that reclamation is properly done, that horizontal directional drilling is being done properly," Cramer said.
Four companies bid for the inspection job. The commission on Wednesday announced it intends to award the contract to Kadrmas, Lee & Jackson, which begins a seven-day window for any of the competing companies to challenge the award.
Cramer said the commission hopes to formally award the contract June 19.
The pipeline's route is to extend for 218 miles through eight counties in eastern North Dakota. It will carry crude oil from Manitoba's tar sands to Illinois and Oklahoma.
TransCanada has separate construction groups working on the north and south sections of the North Dakota pipeline. Cramer said Kadrmas' Grafton office will keep tabs on the pipeline's progress in the north and its Valley City office will monitor construction in the south.
"They'd have inspectors who would be able to go out without spending a lot of time traveling ... to the job sites, and would be able to spend more of the time actually doing the inspection work," Cramer said.
The pipeline's approved route goes through Cavalier, Pembina, Walsh, Nelson, Steele, Barnes, Ransom and Sargent counties in eastern North Dakota.Associated Press)
