Pipeline construction. As I was watching the vast amounts of water running off parking lots and roadways heading into the storm drains, that then lead to the creeks and rivers or that is flooding out onto croplands I was thinking about all the opposition to pipelines and their impact on the environment. Here are some other things to think about: When this pipeline is in the ground and covered up the company will be required to replant native vegetation back on top of pipeline. In many cases this is one of the few opportunities for an area to be planted back to original conditions, especially in an area so vast. That makes it a 50’ wide planting of native grasses and wildflowers specific to the soil types and conditions as recommended by natural resource experts in comparison to a parking lot which is made out of “blacktop”. “Blacktop” or asphalt which is a toxic mix of petroleum and gravel that will never grow anything again and is continuously leaching petroleum products into the soil and waterways, not to mention the asphalt receives small amounts of oil and gas and petroleum products from tires that leak out and off vehicles daily, just waiting to be washed off to surrounding fields and creeks EVERY time it rains. Now one says that if the pipeline breaks it will dump million of gallons of oil into our soil and groundwater. But...not all pipelines carry petroleum. Highly pressurized natural gas and petroleum are fed through pipelines; many of which move through a series of valves and compressors with “negative pressure” (i.e. they suck the product from point A to point B). If there is a break then there are a series of shut-off valves that limit what is spilled and the negative pressure allows air to be pulled in through the hole or break to further reduce leaking product. Definitely not a sure-fire method to eliminate contamination but I would argue that in the long run even a leak has less long-term effects than what our asphalt-covered areas have. #pipelines #pipelineconstruction #environmental #environmentalimpacts #sensitivity #vegetation #environmentalawareness #naturalresources #naturalgas #planting #nativevegetation #outdoors #environmentalprotection https://www.instagram.com/p/B0sdiOIg6Tc/?igshid=3nou9e5dsf4p
