From Yellowstone to Blackstone, if it can happen, it will happen.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

An emergency response crew in Laurel, Montana, clean a section of the Yellowstone river affected by the ExxonMobil oil spill last month. Photograph: Reuters

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/11/us-pipeline-oil-yellowstone
A rupture in the planned Keystone XL pipeline could release up to 6.9m US gallons into the famed Yellowstone river, a nightmare scenario far outstripping the present spill, a new report warns.

The report, produced by an environmental engineer at the University of Nebraska, sets out four worst-case scenarios for a spill on the Keystone XL project, which is designed to carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta to the refineries of Texas. It appears just 10 days after a break in an ExxonMobil pipeline released at least 42,000 US gallons of crude oil into the Yellowstone river.

But an accident on the Keystone XL would carry an vastly greater risk, environmental groups argue. The ExxonMobil pipeline carried about 40,000 barrels a day. The planned Keystone XL would carry more than 700,000 barrels of a thicker and more corrosive type of crude 1,600 miles across the American heartland, crossing the Missouri, Yellowstone, and Platte rivers, as well as important groundwater reserves. The Obama administration is in the final stages of an environmental review of the project.

[xchrom]

1. the montana pipe was carrying tar sands oil.

they admitted it after the fact.

not sure if that was the oil it was carrying at the time of the spill.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. It was in the pipe, but not in the area where the spill ocurred.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/20-5

The Obama administration is in the final stages of signing off on a new 1,600-mile pipeline project to transport oil from the tar sands across the American heartland to Texas oil refineries.

Oil producers have been fighting against demands for additional environmental oversight of the project.

But that position has grown increasingly precarious in the face of growing grassroots opposition and an unrelated pipeline accident over the Yellowstone river earlier this month.

A spokeswoman for Exxon admitted this week that tar sands oil – thicker and more corrosive than crude – was in the same pipeline. But she said it was not in an area affected by the leak.

[liberal N proud]

3. We are competing with China

We have a lot of catch up to do to have our streams and air as polluted as China's.

:sarcasm: