Creek County Man Looking For New Job After Keystone XL Pipeline Permit Canceled

A Creek County man is looking for a new job after he was laid off doing contract work on the Keystone XL pipeline.  

While environmentalists and many Native American tribes support President Joe Biden's executive order to cancel the project, the impact is being felt in Oklahoma.  

At his home in Mannford, Jim Richardson sits in his kitchen hundreds of miles away from where the Keystone XL pipeline would have been. Like so many others, he worked from home during the pandemic. 

The now former senior designer had been working on the project for the past two-and-a-half years, communicating with co-workers in several other states.  

"It's not just a couple of people designing this thing. There's over 130 people working on this thing, in just the company I was working with,” Richardson said.  

Richardson said he signed a non-disclosure agreement and could not say what company he worked for that did contract work for the Keystone XL pipeline. 

He said there were about a dozen people in his Tulsa office. He said he was laid off this week, and said a handful of others lost their jobs, too. 

"I think seven of us have. And I think there's just some that are going to be packing up boxes and closing things up,” Richardson said.  

Richardson said he learned how to do this kind of work during his time in the Army National Guard as a technical engineering specialist. 

He went to the state unemployment office in Sapulpa on Friday, to see how his skills might translate into another field.  

Richardson said things went well at the unemployment office, and he is now going to pursue a college degree while looking for another job.