No it was mostly pretext. There have been pipelines crossing the aquifer since the 50s'. This is nothing new. If that issue didn't exist he would have found something else to block it because that's what part of his base wanted (and the rest wasn't opposed). In the unlikely event that they couldn't find or make up anything then it would just be opposed as contributing to global warming.
That's your opinion. People who are against the Keystone Pipeline are very worried about the Ogalla aquifer. Its an important source of water for the farms and ranches in the Midwest and its already stressed from over usage. Having oil seep into the aquifer at any point could damage the entire aquifer eventually.
While Goeke agrees 20 percent would be a problem, he thinks the chances of a leak reaching the aquifer are very minimal.
That's one man's opinion. Besides 20% is too big a risk. Besides, others don't agree with his assessment:
If the pipeline should spring a leak where it touches the aquifer or even above it, Kleeb and other opponents say, oil could quickly seep into and through the porous, sandy soil. The Ogallala, Kleeb said last year in a television interview, is “a very fragile ecosystem, literally made of sand. .?.?. To have a pipeline crossing that region is just mind-boggling.”
She cited University of Nebraska civil engineering professor John Stansbury, who drew on pipelines’ history and TransCanada regulatory filings to predict that during the projected 50-year life span of the pipeline, “there would be 91 leaks .?.?. that could potentially put 6.5 million gallons of tar sands oil in the Ogallala aquifer and essentially contaminate our drinking water.”
He maintained that a worst-case spill in the Sand Hills region could pollute 4.9 billion gallons of groundwater with a “plume” of contaminants 40 feet thick, 500 feet wide and 15 miles long.
Even Goeke has his concerns:
While Goecke thinks some threats have been exaggerated, he has his own worries about the pipeline. Where the revised route crosses Holt County, he says, the water table is so near the surface that leaks would go into it more quickly and directly “and foul stuff up.” According to TransCanada’s April 18 filing with Nebraska’s environment department, 10.48 miles of the new pipeline route would cross areas where the depth to groundwater is five to 10 feet.
Goecke also worries about the crossing of the broad, shallow Platte River, because if oil leaked there, “that could get downstream and foul the water supply for Omaha and Lincoln.”
Besides the aquifer is already under threat:
The decline in the aquifer isn’t uniform. From 2007 to 2009, for example, there was an increase in water stored in the aquifer in Nebraska overall, according to Goecke, but in southwest Nebraska water levels are falling; by 2007, there were 41 / 2 times as many irrigation wells in the state as there had been in 1960. In north Texas and west Kansas, the Ogallala water levels are falling precipitously, more than 100 feet in 60 years, according to a University of Texas at Austin study.
And the use of pesticides on cropland has polluted parts of the formerly pristine aquifer.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/keystone-xl-pipeline-may-threaten-aquifer-that-irrigates-much-of-the-central-us/2012/08/06/7bf0215c-d4db-11e1-a9e3-c5249ea531ca_story.html
Bottomline: You all want a pipeline that all it will do is make the oil get to market faster while threatening one of the most important aquifers in this country. IMO.......stupid is as stupid does! |
