TransCanada, the company that’s pushing hard to build the tar sands pipelne down the spine of the US, is now offering to change its route to satisfy Nebraska’s concerns.
They say will change the route to avoid Nebraska’s ecologically sensitive Sandhills and Ogallala aquifer, which supplies water to Nebraska and parts of seven other states.
Says Bold Nebraska, which is fighting the pipeline: "We are proud of citizens for pushing state leaders to do the right thing: requiring the pipeline be moved out of the Sandhills and establishing a state-based regulatory system. However, we do not trust Transcanada. They have bullied and mislead landowners and citizens. Because of that we will be watching them like a hawk to ensure our land and water are protected. We look forward to citizens participating with the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality to ensure a fair and transparent study of alternative routes is conducted."
Just a few days ago, President Obama shocked TransCanada and major oil companies by postponing his decision until the State Department carries out an objective, thorough environmental review. That pushes off the decision until at least 2103.
Nebraska is in the middle of a special legislative session to give the people the authority to determine if and where this pipeline could be routed in the state.
Until now, TransCanada insisted re-routing would be impossilbe and threatened a lawsuit against Nebraska. The GOP promises to make the pipeline an election issue.
Now, Nebraska as well as the State Dept. will do an environmental review of the proposed new route, as well as implement regulations for all future pipelines.
Conservative Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper pounced back after President Obama announced his decision, saying he would keep pushing the US to approve the project, while stepping up efforts to build a pipline across western Canada to export the dirty oil to Asia.
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Most Americans think of Canada as a "green" neighbor, but this article exposes the country for what it actually is – a rapacious behemoth run amok. Here are some excerpts:
"Although Canada pretends to be a jolly green giant, it is actually a resource-exploiting Jekyll and Hyde.
The nation serves as corporate headquarters for 75% of the world’s exploration and mining companies. It is the number-one global producer of potash, the number-two miner of sulfur and uranium, and the third-largest exporter of diamonds. It also ranks among the world’s top five producers of aluminum and nickel. And they are still pushing asbestos on emerging countries even as they pull it out of their own buildings. You name it: they dig it.
Canada’s diamond mines typically require destruction of entire northern lakes, and it is actually legal to drain a trophy trout lake and turn it into an impoundment for mining sludge.
Whenever Canada exhausts one resource, it plumbs the landscape for another marketable staple. After the spectacular collapse of Canada’s Atlantic cod fishery due to overfishing in the 1990s, many of the industry’s 35,000 workers found employment in the tar sands of Alberta.
In 2008, Canada’s government said there was a "lack of will" to enforce or even fund the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Moreover, annual reports by Environment Canada, the country’s subdued version of the US EPA, routinely reports negative trends for water and air quality, and greenhouse gas emissions.
Between 2005-2007, 58% of the nation’s 176 long-term water monitoring stations reported water quality as "fair," "poor," or "marginal." A 2008 report from the Conference Board of Canada, an independent business research group with few green credentials, ranked Canada’s environmental performance 15th out of 17 industrial nations. It earned "D" grade for unsustainable fishing practices, profligate water use, and grotesque levels of municipal waste. It was at the bottom of the list for emissions of hazardous volatile organic compounds. Thanks to intensive energy use, forestry, and fossil fuel production, the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions stood at 22.6 metric tons per capita, nearly double the average for the 17 nations in the study. The report concluded, "Without serious attention to environmental sustainability, Canada puts its society and its quality of life at risk."
Prime Minister Harper, the son of an Imperial Oil accountant, has described the tar sands megaproject as "an enterprise of epic proportions, akin to the building of the pyramids or China’s Great Wall. Only bigger."
Over the next 30 years Canada’s bitumen miners will excavate 1,850 square miles of forest, digging enough 250-foot-deep holes to swallow up the state of Delaware. The highly profitable industry has already created enough toxic sludge — six billion barrels — to cover New York’s Staten Island or Washington, D.C. in several feet of waste.
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