Amid intense and gathering pressure from the grassroots to the state government of Nebraska, to a national coalition of activist organizations, tens of thousands of demonstrators and an intensifying drumbeat from leading scientists, Nobel laureates and concerned public officials, Pres. Barack Obama this week ordered the suspension of the Keystone XL pipeline project. The pipeline would carry tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico, for export to other nations, and would run through some of the most sensitive and important fresh water systems in the US.
The pipeline’s potential threat to the Ogallala Aquifer, the largest fresh water fossil aquifer in North America, and the source of water for most of the agriculture in the Great Plains—”breadbasket to the world”—, sparked grave concern among scientists, environmentalists, farmers and public officials in the region. The state of Nebraska, including its Republican governor, had fought for the project’s rejection, as it could cause serious lasting contamination to the sensitive Sand Hills region, the Ogallala Aquifer and other fresh water systems.
Questions had been raised as to the legitimacy of building an oil pipeline to run through such a sensitive area, and about the environmental risk review being conducted by a consulting firm whose top client is the pipeline operator itself.
There is no known way to close off a leak or clean up a spill in an underground aquifer, and the same operator had a record 12 oil spills from another, simpler pipeline, in just one year, in 2010. The catastrophe stemming from BP’s inability to close the Macondo well, when it blew out 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, has worried public officials that no project with high risk of contamination could go forward without a proven plan for response and cleanup.
The decision to call for a fully independent, entirely fresh review of the project puts the decision off till at least the year 2013, and many believe such costly fossil fuel projects may be untenable by then, especially if the environmental review turns up a more skeptical assessment of the project’s safety for environmental and human health.