Sep. 03, 2011. The proposed 1700-mile Keystone Pipeline will, if built, snake underground through some highly significant ecosystems from Canada's Boreal forest through the Sand Hills of Nebraska to the Gulf of Mexico. Construction of this mega-project, destined to carry tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to refineries near the U.S. Gulf Coast, moved closer to reality this summer. The U.S. State Department issued its final version of an environmental impact statement, August 26, essentially giving its approval.
However, State Department Spokeswoman Kerri-Ann Jones is quoted in the Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch on qualifications in that impact statement, noting that there are many "steps that the applicant is required to take and has agreed to take. . ." Before a presidential permit - necessary because the pipeline would cross an international border - can be granted for construction, a 90-day period for public and government agency comment is in place.
Keystone Pipeline Opposition Grows, Too
At the same time that the Keystone project appeared to earn government approval, the opposition to it took a leap forward, as well, gaining an important ally in the Republican Governor of Nebraska, and gaining more visibility for the environmental issues – including how the pipeline might affect sensitive ecosystems. Two weeks of a civil disobedience action staged in front of the White House in Washington, D.C., have resulted in more than 1,000 arrests and hundreds of news stories and blog posts every day at both large and small news outlets, explaining the issues.
Then on August 31, Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman sent letters to President Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton asking then to deny the federal permit for the pipeline. "I believe that the pipeline should not cross a substantial part of the Ogallala Aquifer," Heineman wrote, adding that "This resource is the lifeblood of Nebraska's agriculture industry."
Governor Heineman's opposition to the pipeline reflects the fact that the Ogallala Aquifer, which underlies Nebraska and parts of 7 other states, and Nebraska's distinctive Sand Hills region, have both become icons seen in need of environmental protection from the potential harm of oil leaks. That, combined with a broad coalition in Nebraska of populists and conservatives, working across traditional divides with more liberal environmental activists, is turning the state into a key location in the Stop the Pipeline movement.
Nebraska's Sand Hills Are One of the Last Great Places on the Great Plains
The Sand Hills are essentially a large sand dune formation, occurring in the middle of the Great Plains. In addition to dunes, they combine grasslands and groundwater-fed lakes, and are spread over nearly 20,000 square miles of central and northern Nebraska. A World Wildlife Fund scientific report on North American ecoregions, calls them "the most intact natural habitat of the Great Plans ecoregion," so distinct, they form an ecoregion themselves.
Lisa Song, at Solve Climate News, explains how the Ogallala Aquifer runs only a few feet below the surface in the Sand Hills, writing, "In some places the water bubbles up above ground to feed lakes and streams, so an oil spill could contaminate surface water as well as the underground aquifer."
The area is a fertile home to over 1,000 plant and animal species, and is a particularly important stopover on the migration route for North American sandhill cranes. At times, according to the World Wildlife report, up to 80% of the entire population can be found on the Platte River.
A Bold Nebraska
The online WWF report on ecoregions (based on a book from Island Press publishers, Terrestrial Ecoregions of North America: a Conservation Assessment) was written in 2001 and references a potential for "a high level of awareness of ecosystem sensitivities among landowners." Today, it would seem that awareness has translated into a full-scale movement, aimed at keeping the Keystone Pipeline out of the Sand Hills.
Founded by writer and organizer Jane Kleeb, Bold Nebraska has been actively educating and coordinating "Stop the Pipeline" activities for over a year. It's represented, naturally, at the White House sit-in, but many of its members traveled there earlier this year to personally inform the Nebraska congressional delegation of their concerns about the pipeline.
Some highly visible Bold Nebraska members like Randy Thompson, a 63-year old cattle buyer and lifelong conservative, and 30-year old Ben Gotschall, a fifth generation rancher, are finding themselves in life-changing situations as they write and talk about this fight for the Sand Hills. Thompson told a Canadian newspaper in June that he'd never so much as contacted a single politician before an agent for the pipeline showed up three years ago and offered him an unattractive deal: accept our offer to lease your land, or we'll initiate the process of eminent domain.
Today he says: "We can find another source of energy, but we have no alternative to our source of water. We are just a bunch of damn fools if we put our aquifer at risk."
Kathlin F. Sickel - Reading and writing in print and online. So much to uncover and report. Join me; let's see what we can discover.
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