As you’ve probably heard, the Keystone PIpeline Pipeline that was recently approved by the Trump Administration to change its path in the Dakotas, spilled about 210,000 gallons of crude oil into rural South Dakota a few days ago.
TransCanada had proposed the Dakota Access Pipeline, a pipeline that would carry crude oil from Canada down the middle of the United States which the Obama administration had blocked, but the Trump administration happily approved, yet was met with fierce opposition from local people near the proposed path, Native people, and different environmentalist groups for good reasons. Apparently, everyone knew that it wasn’t a matter whether or not the pipe was going to leak, the concern was when?
The Keystone Pipeline has leaked multiple times over the years, whether that be into people’s land or into major rivers, and with all of this, the state of Nebraska has recently approved the change of path of the pipeline in their state. Nebraska said that they wouldn’t approve unless they could choose the path, but they still approved despite the large spill a few days prior.
The pipeline spilled about one million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River in 2010 and 50,000 gallons into the Yellowstone River in 2015, which did, in fact, contaminate the drinking water there. As can be assumed, these pipelines also have an insane amount of potential to destroy the land and environment that surrounds them, which is why many local people and environmentalist groups are against them.
Not to mention, speaking of the Dakota Access Pipeline, there lies another problem, which is that that specific pipeline would be near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and could harm their land. The most recent leak occurred right near the Reservation, which was to be expected, but so far has not caused any damage.
If these pipelines have the potential to harm people and the environment, why are they supported?
There are lots of reasons, including the whole money part, but clearly, this potential to make a big mess is just not big enough of a problem for pipeline supporters. And the whole possibility of the pipes spilling a bunch of oil onto sacred lands and ruining them part seem to phase the supporters, either. Cool!
We are destroying the earth in so many ways already, why do we need to keep going with these pipes? Who wants the smell of oil when the pipes leak to surround them at all times or destroy all of the crops that they work so hard to grow? Aren’t there other ways?
In the end, protesting the pipe doesn’t seem to work in the fight against it, even though they have spilled multiple times. Maybe, just maybe, if there are enough spills that cause damage, someone will realize that this was all a bad idea and that all of the people who predicted harmful spills were right. Maybe.
But probably not. This will keep happening and will cause a fuss for a few days and then will continuously be ignored over and over again until it just disappears, which is really sad.
