Introduction
My name is David Daniel; I am a landowner in the path of the Keystone XL pipeline. For three years now my family has been forced to battle an industry, its supporters, its lobbyists, and faulty environmental impact statements that make it nearly impossible to make an informed decision about the safety of our water supplies and our lives. As a father, I have a responsibility to protect my family. My family has been through hell and back trying to learn about a project that will affect our lives for multiple generations to come. Our property was trespassed on, we were lied to about permitting, contents, safety, and payment for damages by this foreign company. We are still required to pay taxes on the land that falls within, what is now, their easement; however, we will have limited use of our property, increased liability, and a private foreign company telling us what is in our best interest. If we do not agree with any of this, we are faced with legal action from entities with eternally deep pockets.
TransCanada claims it is a “good neighbor.“ That makes for a nice sound bite, but in reality, that has not been our experience. Also, three U.N. bodies have told TransCanada to cease and desist and respect international covenants as they relate to human rights violations in their own country. It is important to have this discussion with the many variables involved while considering the National Interest — after all, this is a foreign policy issue.
In my quest to simply have the opportunity to make a fully informed decision about our land, air, water, and lives, I founded the group S.T.O.P. – Stop Tarsands Oil Pipelines. This came about through landowner and community awareness actions dedicated to research and education about the proposed project and how it will impact our lives.
It is simple — an honest assessment shows that rather than serving U.S. interests, Keystone XL serves only the interests of tar sands producers and shippers, and a few Gulf Coast refiners aiming to export the oil.
Clearly the State Department would argue that it is not that simple; however, fundamental principles of formulating an honest sum result cannot be based on missing, incomplete, inaccurate, and out of date variables such as those found in the FEIS.
Discussion of FEIS
I understand that the FEIS is only one factor in the National Interest Determination process; however, it is a key factor. I will briefly summarize only eight of the many documented examples to demonstrate that the FEIS conclusion that the project would have minimal environmental impact is not accurate:
1.) The State Department, by its own admission, cannot conduct a full analysis due to a lack of disclosure of the chemicals transported in the pipeline that are considered proprietary information by the shippers. In three years the State Department has not managed to obtain this critical information. Even Texas has done better by enacting laws that require disclosure of chemicals and harmful components related to hydraulic fracturing.
2). The State Department concludes and accepts in its analysis that the pipeline could leak as much as 1.7 million gallons a day without triggering its leak detection system. The people, whose lives and resources would be directly impacted by this assessment, do not consider this scenario to be one that would have a minimal environmental impact. Other methods of additional detection were discounted by both TransCanada and the State Department because they would cost too much to implement. Is national interest more closely related to safety or profit margin?
3). U.S. pipeline regulators say that pipeline regulations were not designed for raw tar sands crude and that regulators had not yet evaluated what measures would be necessary to ensure that raw tar sands pipelines could be built and operated safely. However, the FEIS states; “Crude oil spills are not likely to have toxic effects on the general public because of the many restrictions that local, state and federal agencies impose to avoid environmental exposure after a spill.” The communities surrounding the Enbridge diluted bitumen spill that ended up in the Kalamazoo river are living testimony to the negative toxic effects on human health from the spilled diluted bitumen; the actual lack of current product specific regulations did result in toxic effects on the general public.
4). Both industry and regulators are dismissing the fact that current clean up methods do not work for diluted bitumen spills. The DOS FEIS said, “. . .response to a spill from the proposed pipeline would not require unique clean up procedures. As noted by the EPA Office of Emergency and Remedial Response (EPA 1999):” It is important to note that the EPA statement was from 1999. Due to recent diluted bitumen (dilbit) spills, the EPA claims there is a difference and that new different techniques must be employed to clean up submerged oil. The DOS material is inadequate and out of date.
5.) The FEIS states; “The diluents in dilbit are integrally combined with the bitumen to form a crude oil that is a homogenous mixture that does not physically separate when released.” In addition, in the FEIS section “4.2.2 Environmental Fate and Transport – Water Overview” the DOS states; “If released into water, crude oil will float to the water’s surface.”
The EPA recently has stated otherwise. When Enbridge’s pipeline ruptured last year in Marshall Michigan, the lighter part of the oil evaporated, “making the heavy mixture even more heavy as it moved down the creek and down the river; it had an increased tendency to sink,” Dollhopf said. “It’s the nature of the mixture of the oil that caused it to sink.”
This is the first time the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has had a diluted bitumen spill of this size, and responders are “writing the book” on how to respond, said Ralph Dollhopf, EPA incident commander for the spill.
“At minimum, we’re writing a chapter in the oil spill cleanup book on how to identify submerged oil,” Dollhopf said. “We’re writing chapters on how it behaves once it does spill (and) how to recover it.” Dollhopf said it is unknown how much oil sank to the bottom.
6.) The spill data used to develop the spill frequency estimate was based on data from 2008. It did not include current models, especially those from the same company whose brand new Keystone companion project has leaked 14 times since June 2010, which has, for the first time in U.S. pipeline history for a new line, earned them a Corrective Action Order by U.S. Pipeline regulators determining the Keystone companion project to be “an imminent threat to life, property and the environment.”
7.) The State Department failed to analyze the impact of drought on the water needs for the pipeline and failed to look at the issue of wildfires and their impact along the pipeline. In fact, the DOS FEIS concluded that flash volatilization from crude oil that would be transported by the proposed Project is physically not possible due to the very unlikely event of a fire from any cause. However, Material Safety Data Sheets from other diluted bitumen pipelines state the flash point to be 100 degrees.
8.) I demand that the following be addressed immediately: what is proposed to happen to the toxic “spent catalyst” which results from the proposed refining to take place in Texas? This issue has not yet been addressed at any level.
The Purpose and Need Factor
The State Department defines the purpose and need of the pipeline as one that will transport Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin heavy crude oil (diluted bitumen / tar sands) from the U.S. border to delivery points on the Texas Gulf coast. The emphasis is on meeting the needs of oil refineries instead of on meeting the energy needs of the United States. In fact, the State Department says that this is an international commodity that will be sold on the global market, as that is the way the market works, and that there is no guarantee that any of this heavy crude will stay in the U.S.. Any claim that the pipeline enhances our energy security, is not based on the reality of the global market system.
However, through a deceptive marketing campaign, TransCanada and other proponents tell the American public that, “the Keystone XL pipeline is an American oil pipeline that will reduce unfriendly imports, bring a stable supply of oil to the U.S., create thousands of jobs, and lower fuel costs.” TransCanada is simply the transportation company and has publicly stated that they are not responsible for what flows through their pipes. Even the State Department analysis disagrees with TransCanada’s jobs claims, which is the proponents strongest National Interest claim. Deceptive practices have no place in what the State Department claims to be a fair and transparent process.
In testimony to Canada‘s National Energy Board, TransCanada said that it had developed a strategy to use the Keystone XL pipeline to manipulate oil markets and drive up prices in the American Midwest by up to $4 billion dollars annually.
The State Department has acknowledged that the need for this pipeline does not currently exist and is not projected to actually be needed until 2025. Due to the lack of current demand in the US market, refiners have identified the export market as their primary hope for growth and maximum profits. Committed oil companies’ documentation show their plan has been to take the heavy crude from Alberta, refine it in Texas and then ship it out of the country from a tax free zone. As far as actual demand or purpose and need, putting this project in to play at this time is the equivalent of putting the cart before the horse, especially when specific regulations have not even been created.
It has been stated that supplies such as heavy crude imports from Mexico are in decline therefore refiners in the Gulf have a specific need for supplemental supplies of heavy crude that can be hydro-cracked into diesel for the existing export diesel market. This certainly reinforces the earlier statement that since the declared purpose and need of the project is to get the diluted bitumen to delivery points in Texas (refineries), then the emphasis is on meeting the needs of oil refineries instead of on meeting the energy needs of the United States.
National Interest Concerns
All of our resources need to be prioritized in terms of National Interest / purpose and need. This project and the source of its contents represent a huge threat to water supplies. The World Bank has stated that the wars of the 21st century will be fought over water. A significant circumstance that is egregiously overlooked is our purpose and need for water. Water ties Purpose and Need and National Interest into one package. We have less than one percent of the world’s water available to us as fresh water. This is a non-renewable element that is critical to life as we know it, and yet, in most cases surrounding this project, it falls in the low consequence classification. The conclusion of the FEIS is counter-intuitive with respect to the treatment of fresh water versus the blatant cowing to the industry and its lobbyists. There will be no stable and reliable sources of fresh water if we do not do everything within our power to protect that 1%. There are alternative sources of energy; however, there are no alternative sources of water. What sources we do have are decreasing do to increased pollution and an increasing population. Water is our number one National Interest concern.
A Military Advisory Board of retired generals and admirals argue in a report entitled “Powering America’s Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security”, that reducing America’s reliance on oil and addressing our carbon emissions as they relate to climate change are critical for future national security. The concerns extend beyond America’s dependence on foreign oil, because no matter what the source, America’s dependence on oil “undermines economic stability, which is critical to national security.”
Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, former Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Warfare Requirements and Programs, warns that to ignore the national security implications of our current energy system would be extremely unwise. “We have less than 10 years to change our fossil fuel dependency course in significant ways. Our nation’s security depends on the swift, serious and thoughtful response to the inter-linked challenges of energy security and climate change. Our elected leaders and, most importantly, the American people should realize this set of challenges isn’t going away. We cannot continue business as usual.”
“We will pay for this one way or another,” Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, a retired Marine and the former head of the Central Command, wrote recently in a report he prepared as a member of a military advisory board on energy and climate at CNA, a private group that does research for the Navy. “We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we’ll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or we will pay the price later in military terms,” he warned. “And that will involve human lives.”
The National Intelligence Council, which produces government-wide intelligence analyses, has finished the first assessment of the national security implications of climate change just. It concluded that climate change by itself would have significant geopolitical impacts around the world and would contribute to a host of problems, including poverty, environmental degradation and the weakening of national governments. “The demands of these potential humanitarian responses may significantly tax U.S. military transportation and support force structures, resulting in a strained readiness posture and decreased strategic depth for combat operations,” the report said.
In 2007, President Bush signed into law Section 526 of the Energy Independence and National Security Act of 2007. It prohibits the US government, which is the largest single fuel purchaser in the U.S., from using taxpayer dollars to purchase fuels that have a higher carbon footprint than conventional oil. This little-known law is significant because Congress crafted it, in part, with the explicit intent to block the US from buying Canadian tar sands oil — considered the dirtiest oil on the planet. The law applies to fuels derived from unconventional petroleum sources such as tar sands which produce significantly higher greenhouse gas emissions than those produced by comparable fuel from conventional sources.
Conclusion
As a landowner, I have thoroughly investigated the National Interest issue as it relates to the forced taking of my family’s property. The National Interest for the American “public good” that would then justify such a taking, is not there. Simply look at Canada’s intentions and it is clear. Ronald Liepert, the energy minister in Alberta, said “I can predict confidently that at some point China will take every drop of oil Canada can produce.” Also, Canadian officials have said that the European Union’s standards to promote less carbon intensive fuels would harm the market for its carbon intensive oil.
If an ordinary citizen risked the lives of children in the same manner that has been proposed by the State Department, TransCanada, and Cardno Entrix, then they would be facing criminal child endangerment charges. Child Endangerment laws make it a crime to endanger the health or life of a child through an adult’s recklessness or indifference. The State Department has admitted in its analysis that additional safety measures are not cost effective for the proposed project. It is unquestionably reckless to move forward with a project that does not have regulations put in place to ensure that it could be built and operated safely, whose carcinogenic contents have not been disclosed or analyzed, and whose Environmental Impact Statement is riddled with incomplete and out of date data.
What has resulted from the indifference and actions described above, is that the industry classification of “low consequence” has taken on an expanded meaning. When concerns over whether the market for this product would be harmed or not takes precedence over truth, fairness, transparency, thoroughness, safety, and the protection of our land, air, water, and lives, then one can’t help but to think that our lives and resources can then simply be considered “collateral damage” in the game where the national interest trump card gets played.
The State Department has demonstrated that it is incapable of making an unbiased decision with respect to the National Interest of the Keystone XL pipeline. This is a critical decision that will set either a positive or a negative precedent, and will indisputably impact the lives of future generations.
Let us acknowledge the true negative impact of this project on the environment, its true intent to make a profit at the expense of the environment — and instead move forward with real national interest issues such as the preservation of our limited life-sustaining resources.
Respectfully,
David Daniel
Founder
STOP – Stop Tarsands Oil Pipelines
575 County Road 4591
Winnsboro, TX. 75494
903-563-3935
