Opinion ID: 6536714
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Gas in a pipeline is in mass.

Text: Alaska Statute 34.35.170(a)(1) also requires gas to be in mass to constitute a dump. The statute provides that a dump is in mass ... whether it is deposited in dumps or piles, or placed in hoppers, tanks, or reservoirs, or in sluice boxes or bunkers or other receptacles. 67 Consistent with the conclusion reached by the territorial district court in Studdert v. Tanana Valley Gold Dredging Co. , we conclude that the whether clause limits the ways that a dump can be in mass to the enumerated examples. 68 The term whether, when used as a conjunction, introduces alternative possibilities that have qualifying or conditional force. 69 Following this interpretation, the only way for natural gas to be in mass would be for it either to be deposited in dumps or piles or placed in hoppers, tanks, or reservoirs, or in sluice boxes or bunkers or other receptacles. 70 Because gas has no fixed shape or volume, it cannot be deposited in a dump or pile. We must therefore determine whether natural gas pumped out of its natural reservoir into a pipeline on its way to another destination is placed into a receptacle for the statute's purposes. Cook Inlet and Gebhardt argue that a pipeline is not a receptacle containing a dump because, unlike the statute's other listed examples, a pipeline is used for transportation, not storage. A receptacle is [t]hat which receives or holds anything for rest or deposit. 71 We apply the ejusdem generis canon of construction and interpret the word receptacle in light of the characteristics of the specific terms that precede it. 72 All but one of the statute's listed receptacles primarily are used to hold or store materials. Tanks and reservoirs both are used to store liquids or gases. 73 Bunkers are large bins used to  store materials. 74 Hoppers also are bins or vessels that typically have a door or chute on the bottom that can be opened to remove their contents, and can be used for storage 75 or as a temporary holding place. 76 The outlier among the enumerated receptacles is the sluice box. Unlike the other listed receptacles, sluice boxes are used primarily to separate valuable minerals from waste minerals. 77 But like the other receptacles, they hold a quantifiable amount of materials in one place. We conclude that pipelines are sufficiently similar to tanks, reservoirs, bunkers, hoppers, and sluice boxes to qualify as receptacles. Unlike tanks, reservoirs, bunkers, and hoppers, the primary purpose of a pipeline is not to hold something, but to transport it from one place to another. 78 But the inclusion of sluice boxes in the enumerated list of receptacles indicates that a receptacle under the statute does not need to only or primarily hold its contents. In the process of conveying a gas, pipelines do hold or contain it for a brief period of time, as a receptacle would. As All American notes, it also appears that natural gas can be stored in a pipeline to enable a gas producer to respond to changes in demand. 79 In some pipeline systems, a certain level of gas must be stored in the system to maintain pressure levels. 80 The gas stored in a pipeline is called line  pack, and its volume can be calculated. 81 The incidental storage function of pipelines is similar to that of sluice boxes, which are used to separate gold from sand and gravel and likely only store the gold for a short time. Because pipelines are receptacles, we conclude that gas in a pipeline is in mass.