Ok here's what I don't get about this whole Keystone XL Pipeline project...

[LynneSin]

Honestly, I've been more worried about what Fracking is doing here in our own country especially since I'm downstream from what Pennsylvania, which is dumping god knows what into the Delaware River, the main source of drinking water for the state of Delaware.

So I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the most knowledgeable about the this stuff about the Tar Sands and the Keystone XL Pipeline. But I do know this.

#1 - The Tar Sands are in Alberta which is a providence in the country of Canada.
#2 - Canada is NOT a landlocked Country

So my question is this - why does this pipeline have to run through our country all the way down to Louisiana? I mean Canada has ports on both the Atlantic and Pacific - why not just run the pipe thru there and save us all the hassle?

[TreasonousBastard]

1. The Gulf has the refineries....

Lots and lots of refineries.

[LynneSin]

2. The Gulf has Hurricanes, lots and lots of hurricanes

Wouldn't this be a grand opportunity for some town off the coast of British Columbia to build their own Refineries and keep all that money to themselves?

[SunSeeker]

3. Maybe Canada does not want to ruin their coastline.

Maybe they don't want to turn it into the oil - soaked exploding hell hole that is south Texas?

[LynneSin]

13. Their oil - their problem

That's my 2 cents.

[SunSeeker]

23. More like Koch brothers' oil, Koch brothers' problem.

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/20/the_koch_keystone_connection_brothers_are_the_largest_lease_holders_in_canadas_oil_sands/

[Art_from_Ark]

4. There are lots of mountains between Alberta and the British Columbia coast.

Lots and lots of mountains. There are no mountains to speak of between the Front Range of Alberta and Houston. However, someone posted a thread the other day about TransCanada considering using existing pipelines to transport that stuff eastward.

[B Calm]

12. Alaska pipeline crosses over 3 mountain ranges.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. Nope. You need a huge deepwater port with...

alternative ports in case of weather or whatever, and you don't just up and build a refinery. You also want to look at the total refinery capacity in an area. Refineries run on such tight schedules that you would prefer one next door instead of an ocean away.

Gulf refineries have been dealing with hurricanes for a hundred years, but a bigger problem with the Gulf is getting to the Pacific. A bigger Central American canal would be handy.

[LeftInTX]

5. What really gets me is the pipeline is already there.

They want to add another one(in green) to make it shorter.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Pipeline

[JDPriestly]

6. It doesn't. There is an alternative route through Canada and that is where the oil should go.

[freshwest]

7. Koch Industries own that refinery near Houston. It's hard to go from the tar sands to B.C.

Last edited Tue Nov 18, 2014, 07:13 AM - Edit history (1)

Really, really hard.

This route is flat and takes into account the Plains and the politics of the region. It has been approved by the majority of voters in states it's going through.

Transporting it to the East or West coasts of North America is resisted by the locals and there are well known environmental groups to fight back. The native peoples in Canada are resisting crossing the rivers.

The pipeline was promised to Canada and the energy companies by Bush in 2007. They all thought it was done deal and consider Obama's stonewalling it for 6 years a betrayal.

In the first year of operations, the Koch brothers will DOUBLE their Net Worth from $100B to $200B. In just one year.

They are a formidable force in American politics and have convinced most Americans to agree with this pipeline. Which is easily proven by how the American people voted this month, to keep the people who have worked so hard to make this go through with every single bill they've negotatied in Congress, with every governorship and state house they've taken over.

They have no reason to give up as their strategies have worked so well. As far as sparing us the hassle, it's a much bigger game here than just the pipeline itself.

It would be the most egregrious slap in the face to the remaining progressive movement in this nation. It's one of many reasons Obama has opposed it since entering office.

There will be some very rough days in the next two years, and many may not survive them.

[grahamhgreen]

10. Basically, Koch Bro's.. It will consolidate their purchase of Congress.

[suffragette]

9. Conservatives in Canada have been pushing for pipelines on west coast.

Environmentalists, western First Nations and BC liberals have been fighting, with protests and now with lawsuits.

Here's a link with several articles about Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline plans and protests:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/news/enbridge-northern-gateway-pipeline/

Here's some info from an article about the expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline:

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/former-bc-hydro-ceo-calls-neb-industry-captured-pulls-out-kinder-morgan-hearings

"In my view the NEB hearing process is a rigged game," Eliesen told The Vancouver Observer by the phone. "In the past, there was a more objective evaluation of projects that would come forward...but it's reached a stage where the NEB is not interested in the public interest, and more interested in facilitating the infrastructure for the oil and gas industry."

Eliesen criticized numerous aspects of the NEB's hearing for Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. The Texas-based pipeline giant is applying to expand its existing 60-year-old Trans Mountain pipeline to carry 890,000 barrels of diluted bitumen from Edmonton, Alberta to Burnaby, B.C.

The controversial application has been opposed by both city councils of Burnaby and Vancouver, as well as some citizen groups, due in part to a six-fold increase of oil tankers in the Burrard Inlet that the pipeline expansion will bring.

Eliesen said he was "dismayed" to see that that the NEB has dropped oral cross-examination of proponents, which he said was a "critical" part of oil pipeline hearings in previous years. He also questioned why Kinder Morgan was not required to respond to 2,000 questions submitted by Intervenors, with the NEB rejecting 95 per cent of the queries.

This is a cross border issue:

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/10/27/coast-salish-unite-against-tripling-capacity-kinder-morgan-tar-sands-pipeline-157543

Their nearly 60,000 people have lived along the coasts of Oregon and Washington State, and in British Columbia, Canada for more than 10,000 years. They are united by language, culture and the Salish Sea.

And now, in addition, they are united in their opposition to oil giant Kinder Morgan’s proposed $5.4 billion expansion of its existing Trans Mountain tar sands oil pipeline, which links the Alberta oil sands fields to a shipping terminal in Burnaby, near Vancouver, B.C. The new pipeline would nearly triple the capacity of the existing pipeline from 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000, increasing by sevenfold the number of tankers carrying diluted tar sands bitumen through the Salish Sea in Washington and Canada.
~~~
At the proposed coal terminal at the Puget Sound’s Cherry Point site, where herring populations have plummeted, local herring experts associated ship traffic, and the threat of invasive species tagging along with the shipping vessels as risks to the fish, Sightline Daily reported last year.

Approving the pipeline would mean a massive increase in tanker loadings that would put tribal fishers at risk, “not to mention drastically increase the chance of a catastrophic oil spill,” said Glen Gobin, a member of the Tulalip board of directors, to the NEB panel.

I'm in Seattle and the pressure to increase coal trains here is an important issue. I've posted a bit about it before. Here's one from this summer:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3208567

[RiverLover]

19. Thanks for info! ~nt

[suffragette]

26. You're welcome. nt

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

25. Yep

http://www.gatewayfacts.ca/About-The-Project/Project-Overview.aspx

Largely company propaganda but it does give some info.

[suffragette]

27. Thanks for link. Yup, major propaganda. They have had some large spills and the bitumen

Apparently sinks, which makes cleaning even more challenging.
And our shared waterways with Canada can be notoriously difficult to navigate.

Take a look at this article from 2013:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/enbridge-s-kalamazoo-cleanup-dredges-up-3-year-old-oil-spill-1.1327268

Three years after an Enbridge pipeline ruptured and spilled 3.3 million litres of oil into Michigan's Kalamazoo River, the company is still cleaning up and learning lessons about the way diluted bitumen behaves in fresh water.

The biggest lesson, simply put, is that bitumen sinks.

"Everybody learned from this incident about what we can do differently. Every one of us, from the regulators, to the contractors, to ourselves, have come away from this saying, 'I know what I would do differently the next time,'" explained Leon Zupan, Enbridge's chief operating officer.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered Canada's largest pipeline company to return to the river to dredge areas where the agency believes remains of the heavy bitumen fossil fuel have collected. The March 2013 order came nine months after most of the 56-kilometre stretch of the river affected by the spill was reopened to the public.

The Kalamazoo incident is the largest onland spill in the history of the U.S., and has already cost Enbridge more than $1 billion.


Again, this shows this is a global issue, not only a local one.
The oil barons know this. Enbridge operates down here as well as in Canada and Kinder Morgan is a Texas company. And all those conservative profits are then funneled into electing more conservatives on both sides of the border and buying off whoever else they can, as freshwest noted above about the Kochs.
First Nations on both sides of the border are correct. We need to stand together in fighting this or we'll all pay the price in destruction of the environment that nourishes us.

[hack89]

11. Do you want oil tankers in the Straits of Juan de Fuca? Nt

[LynneSin]

14. In Canada? Personally it's their oil and their problem

I don't want that shit in my country end of discussion.

If they want to get it out of the sand and to an Ocean let them figure it out. Else just let it in the sand where it is.

[hack89]

17. We share the straits with Canada

If there is a spill their shit will be in our country.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

24. We already have them.

There are refineries in Anacortes and Cherry Point near Ferndale in Washington State.

I think what you're saying is additional tanker traffic.

[City Lights]

15. Side note...Alberta is a province in Canada,

not a providence.

[Brickbat]

16. It's not Canada's oil. It's the oil companies' oil.

Oil is not a nationalized resource in Canada.

[sharp_stick]

18. Canada actually has an alternative

in the works but the American oil companies aren't too enamored with it because it cuts down on their potential profits and they have a big stake in the oil sands.

The Energy East pipeline would go from Alberta, East to the deep water port in St. John New Brunswick. I really don't know if Keystone approval would put this on the shelf or not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_East_pipeline

[Recursion]

20. There's already a pipeline; they want to make it shorter

The Keystone Pipeline has existed for years now, but it jogs all the way east before it turns south. The XL extension is supposed to cut across Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska, which shortens the trip.

That's part of what is so perplexing about the passion with which people take this issue on: the oil is currently being piped over the US. This is a proposal to alter (and in fact shorten) its route.

[jeff47]

21. And much, much bigger.

The new pipeline is much larger than the existing pipeline. Exponentially increasing the danger.