ASU professor on the history of safety in oil pipelines

Arizona State University assistant professor Christopher Jones has written a piece for Zócalo Public Square in which he looks at the history of oil pipelines in the United States. Given the current national conversation on the safety of oil pipelines, Jones' timely piece puts it in historical context.

"Long-distance pipelines were developed in the late 19th century to compete with railroads for the conveyance of crude oil," wrote Jones, an assistant professor of history in ASU's School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies. "The problem in the 1870s was not that railroads lacked sufficient capacity to carry oil or that they spilled unacceptable amounts ... Rather, the problem had a name: John D. Rockefeller."

Jones also talks about America's reliance on pipelines as its preferred method of transportation and what the future direction may be.