STOP Report – TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline:
Tar Sands Permits Should be Denied due to Texas Drought and Potential Threat to Drinking Water
September 15, 2011
Click below for a PDF version of the STOP Drought Report:
STOP Drought Report – Keystone XL Pipeline – September 15, 2011
______________________________________________________________________________________
Texas Hydrologist’s Report Highlights Dangers of Keystone XL to Water Supplies
Lawrence Dunbar, a Houston-based hydrologist, released a groundbreaking report on Wednesday that underlines the dangers of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline to East Texas’ water supplies. The report details the threat to the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer, which provides drinking and irrigation water for 10-12 million Texans, due to the high likelihood of a leak from the corrosive tar sands and the nearly impossible clean-up of the heavier than water substance.
To download the report go to:
Read more: The Gilmer Mirror – Texas Hydrologist’s Report Highlights Dangers of Keystone XL to Water Supplies
__________________________________________________________________________________________
The Water Resources of Earth
Over 70% of our Earth’s surface is covered by water. Although water is seemingly abundant, the real issue is the amount of fresh water available.
97.5% of all water on Earth is salt water, leaving only 2.5% as fresh water.
Nearly 70% of that fresh water is frozen in the icecaps of Antarctica and Greenland; most of the remainder is present as soil moisture, or lies in deep underground aquifers as groundwater not accessible to human use.
Less than < 1% of the world’s fresh water (~0.007% of all water on earth) is accessible for direct human uses.
This is the water found in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and those underground sources that are shallow enough to be tapped at an affordable cost. Only this amount is regularly renewed by rain and snowfall, and is therefore available on a sustainable basis.
Demand is increasing. - The population is growing rapidly, putting more pressure on our water supply.
Supply is decreasing.- The amount of water is effectively reduced by pollution and contamination.
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/freshwater_supply/freshwater.html
***Ismael Serageldin, the World Bank’s leading environment expert, warned that the “wars of the 21st century will be fought over water.”
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Why should water be a factor in Tar Sands development and Tar Sands pipelines?
Fact # 1: We have alternative sources of energy, however, we do not have alternative sources of water and what resources we do have are not being considered as a vital part of any National Interest Determination discussion or decisions regarding tar sands development. Tar sands development and the pipelines that carry this toxic sludge threaten several major aquifers that provide drinking water and irrigation to nearly a dozen U.S. states alone and nearly 20 million people. These projects cross countless rivers, streams, and creeks, and put countless water wells at risk.
Fact # 2: Egregious amounts of water are being contaminated by Tar Sands development already. It takes four to five barrels of water to extract one barrel of tar sands and then only 10% of that is reclaimable while the other 90% end up in toxic tailings ponds. These toxic bodies of waste water are so large that they can be seen from space. Some of them have dam’s three hundred feet tall. This toxic cocktail of heavy metals and carcinogens leach into the rivers and water supplies where fish with massive tumors, wildlife with elevated levels of carcinogens, and people with elevated and rare cancers can be found.
Fact # 3: In order for tar sands to flow in a pipeline, they must be run at high pressure which increases the heat, and carcinogenic chemicals called diluents, such as benzene, toluene, hydrogen sulfide, and natural gas liquid condensate must be added. Therefore, the toxins have increased multi-fold just in order to transport this already toxic unconventional fossil fuel. However, what is even more alarming about this is the fact that the industry has not done the necessary studies to be certain that conventional pipeline technology can protect our water resources from contamination. In fact, recently, U.S. regulators of the Pipeline Hazardous Material Safety Administration 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.
Fact # 4: The State Department concludes and accepts in their analyses that the pipeline could leak as much as 1.7 million gallons a day without triggering its leak detection system and at TransCanada’s suggestion, will not require additional ground patrols for these undetectable leaks. The State Department, by their own admission, can not 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. As a result, the EPA said it couldn’t determine the potential impacts to groundwater in the event of a spill.
Fact # 5: Tar Sands oil has a specific gravity that is heavier than conventional crude, causing it to sink in water, not float on top for skimmers to pick up. It was tar sands that ran through Marshall Michigan in Enbridge’s Pipeline 6B that ruptured on July 26, 2010 sending over one million gallons into the Kalamazoo river. As of October 22, 2011, nearly forty miles of the river is still restricted, even to residents. The E.P.A recently said that 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.” “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 (tar sands) 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.”
Therefore, when dangerous and destructive projects such as tar sands development and the dangerously inadequate pipelines that carry this toxic cocktail are given precedence over our limited water supplies, then we know for a fact that our best interest, the best interest of the people, is not being considered a priority by those we elect to protect us. Rather, the majority of our elected officials are looking out for the bottom line of the industry controlled system.
Then again, water is increasingly becoming a private domain of corporations, managed as a commodity to be sold to consumers, for a user fee. As water becomes more and more of a commodity through leasing and outright sales by the provincial and federal government, our rights as citizens to access safe free potable water becomes undermined.
Citigroup estimates that about one-third of the global population will not have access to adequate drinking water by 2025. Right now, 35% of the world’s population, or 2.4 billion people, do not have access to safe drinking water and sanitation, the U.N. says. Citigroup expects the $450 billion global water industry to grow at a steady 5% annual rate in the years to come. While this may seem modest, the growth is non-cyclical (which means that it should grow regardless of the business cycle) yet non-defensive (it should accelerate as emerging-market economies develop). In the volatile economic environment we’ve had lately, these are valuable characteristics.
http://money.msn.com/exchange-traded-fund/is-water-the-new-gold-mirhaydari.aspx
As a society, if we are concerned about our future generations, then we can not let these ongoing abuses happen.
