Tar Sands Oil and Water Don’t Mix. Literally.
Just over a month ago, residents of Mayflower, AR experienced the devastation of a tar sands spill in their backyards. This spill-which poses significant risks to Lake Conway and the Lake Maumelle watershed-raised a number of red flags for Keystone XL.
The proposed route for Keystone XL crosses over the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the country’s largest sources of freshwater that provides drinking water and irrigation for millions of Americans.
There have already been 81 significant oil spills so far in 2013, according the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. A spill on the Ogallala Aquifer would be far worse than any of these spills because of the unique properties of tar sands that make clean up in water particularly difficult.
The 2010 Kalamazoo River spill revealed that tar sands oil sinks to the bottom of bodies of water, making it much harder to clean up. As Michigan State University Professor Steve Hamilton said on NPR “It’s not quite solid, and it’s not quite liquid. You could pick it up and shape it into a ball practically.” The Kalamazoo cleanup effort has already cost over $820 million, and could top $1 billion.
The EPA found that the State Department’s Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement did not adequately address the risks of spills and leaks, especially ones that occur atop the Aquifer.
A spill on the Aquifer would contaminate drinking water, pollute irrigation water for agriculture, and have significant economic impacts for the heartland’s cattle industry.
U.S. pipelines average 280 significant spills a year. TransCanada’s original Keystone pipeline experienced 12 separate spills in the United States in the first year of operation– nearly one every month. One of those spills alone released 21,000 gallons of dirty tar sands oil. Between the U.S. and Canada, the original Keystone pipeline had “over 30 spills” in its first year, according to a report by Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute.
Not only would Keystone XL pose significant risks to water, health, and climate—but it would provide no tangible benefits for American families. The pipeline will go through the US, not to the US. Once it reaches the Gulf, tar sands oil products will be exported overseas to countries like China and Venezuela. Moreover, the pipeline will create only 35 permanent jobs.
Keystone XL is all risk, no reward—and is clearly not in our national interest.
