Obama Says He’ll Evaluate Pipeline Project Depending on Pollution

[think]

13. But if the pipeline is built it will cross the Ogallala Aquifer

Wikipedia: Ogallala Aquifer

The Ogallala Aquifer, part of the High Plains Aquifer System, is a vast yet shallow underground water table aquifer located beneath the Great Plains in the United States. One of the world's largest aquifers, it covers an area of approximately 174,000 mi² (450,000 km²) in portions of the eight states of South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. It was named in 1898 by N.H. Darton from its type locality near the town of Ogallala, Nebraska.[1]

The Ogallala Formation underlies about 80 percent of the High Plains and is the principal geologic unit of the High Plains Aquifer. About 27 percent of the irrigated land in the United States overlies this aquifer system, which yields about 30 percent of all ground water used for irrigation in the United States. The aquifer system supplies drinking water to 82 percent of the 2.3 million people (1990 census) who live within the boundaries of the High Plains study area.[2]

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

Considering the appalling record of the tar sands pipeline companies this would seem like a completely insane project to initiate.....

It's Crazy To Think Keystone XL Won't Leak

4/07/2013 @ 5:17PM - James Conca, Contributor

~Snip~

It’s not that these pipelines and rigs can’t be run safely, it’s that they aren’t. Maybe the managers and operators who originally built them once cared, but after they’ve retired or died, the new managers don’t have the same ownership.

Just look at last weeks’ Exxon Pegasus pipeline spill in the middle of an Arkansas neighborhood. Almost a hundred thousand gallons of heavy crude poured down the street of homeowners who didn’t even know the pipeline was there. It was 65 years old. Everyone who worked on it is dead.

And this was the second U.S. spill in a week involving Canadian crude (Reuters).

At the time Pegasus was built, it was state-of-the-art. But like any system, it needs upkeep and maintenance. Why isn’t that happening? With any of our millions of miles of pipelines? And why does anyone think it will be different with Keystone XL?

Exxon installed what it called new leak detection technology in the Pegasus line in 2009.

How’d that work out?

It’s not like Keystone XL will leak in the first five years following its construction, but it will in the decades following that, for just the same reason.

ExxonMobil was fined nearly $2 million for a similar spill in 2011 in the Yellowstone River. And regulators are considering a similar fine for the Pegasus.

~Snip~

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/04/07/its-crazy-to-think-keystone-xl-wont-leak/

Add to that that the owners of the proposed Keystone pipeline doesn't plan to use state of the art monitors for leaks:

Keystone XL Pipe Shuns Infrared Sensors to Detect Leaks

By Rebecca Penty & Mike Lee - Jun 18, 2013 4:19 PM CT

TransCanada Corp. (TRP), which says Keystone XL will be the safest pipeline ever built, isn’t planning to use infrared sensors or fiber-optic cables to detect spills along the system’s 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) path to Texas refineries from fields in Alberta.

Pipeline companies have been slow to adopt new leak detection technology, including infrared equipment on helicopters flying 80 miles an hour or acoustic sensors that can identify the sound of oil seeping from a pinhole-sized opening. Instead of tools that can find even the smallest leaks, TransCanada will search for spills using software-based methods and traditional flyovers and surveys. ...

~Snip~

Pipelines spilled an average of 112,569 barrels a year in the U.S. from 2007 to 2012, a 3.5 percent increase from the previous five-year period, according to U.S. Transportation Department figures compiled by Bloomberg.

The department is studying leak detection as it considers new rules to improve safety. Equipment available to spot spills more quickly would have cut 75 percent off the estimated $1.7 billion toll in property damage caused by major incidents on oil lines from 2001 to 2011, consultants said in a December report prepared for the department...

Full article:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-17/keystone-xl-pipeline-shuns-high-tech-oil-spill-detectors.html