Keystone XL prelim? 230,000 People Told Not To Drink Their Water After Diesel Fuel Spill In Canada

[Tom Rinaldo]

11. Potential Consequences

It is illustrative of the high stakes gamble represented by siting an oil pipeline over an aquifer that provides drinking water to millions, and unlike a river, petroleum products would there not be purged and cleansed over days weeks or months by a flowing river. The means of introduction of diesel fuel into the drinking supply of that city involved an infrastructure breakdown. All infrastructure runs a risk of breaking down. What happens to drinking water when an oil pipeline over an aquifer suffers an infrastructure breakdown? Water can become toxic in both cases.