I have thought of that too. More than that question, imagine what an earthquake would do to groundwater if it struck an area within the 165,000 miles o pipelines (which carry crude and refines products) in the US.

Under the Instate Commerce Act, oil pipelines provide transportation, temporary storage and logistics services; they do not own the product they transport. Most oil pipelines are “common carriers” under the Interstate Commerce Act. Wonder who would pay for that cleanup?

Also of interest comes from this website from the Association of Oil Pipe Lines. You don't hear much about these accidents:

"The pipeline industry takes its role to operate pipelines with the public's trust very seriously. With the implementation of an integrity management system for pipelines in 2001, the Department of Transportation specified how pipeline operators identify, prioritize, assess, evaluate, repair, and validate the integrity of hazardous liquid pipelines that, in the event of a failure, could affect high consquence areas.

"Spills along the right-of-way have fallen from 2 incidents per thousand miles in 1999-2001 to 0.8 incidents per thousand miles in 2005-2007, a deline of 60%. The volume released along the right-of-way has fallen from just over 600 barrels per thousand miles (1999-2001) to 300 barrels per thousand miles (2005-2007), a decline of 25%. Spills along the right-of-way are where pipelines are most likely to have an impact on the public, and are most helpful in measuring progress.

"Several cause categories have been identified for onshore pipeline incidents, including corrosion, third party excavation damage, equipment and non-pipe failures, operator error, and pipe material failures. The number of incidents in each of these categories has fallen in the last period (2005-2007) over the previous period (1999-2001) anywhere from 20%-71%."



http://www.aopl.org/pipelineSafety/