Pipelines, Politics and Protesters
Three closely watched decisions were made in the past six weeks, one very close to home and one that brought a halt, at least temporarily, to confrontations between protestors and law enforcement in North Dakota. Briefly:
December 4 - The North Dakota Access Pipeline was stymied when The Army Corps of Engineers announced that it would not grant an easement to drill under Lake Oahu without further review. “It’s unclear if they have won their campaign to protect the waters and sacred grounds of the Standing Rock Sioux.” — Steve Curwood, host of PRI’s Living on Earth.
The 1,172-mile pipeline crosses four states and is nearly complete, despite multiple “legal disputes about water safety, Native American lands and eminent domain.” — Conflicts along the path of the North Dakota Access Pipeline, New York Times.
November 6 - “President Obama announced his administration’s formal rejection of the Keystone XL Pipeline proposal saying it ‘would not serve the interests of the United States.’ President Obama went on to say,’Ultimately, if we are going prevent large parts of this Earth from becoming not only inhospitable but uninhabitable in our lifetimes, we are going to have to keep some fossil fuels in the ground rather than burn them.’” — C-SPAN
November 30, 2016 - Release of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s final environmental impact statement on the NEXUS Gas Transmission pipeline project, slated to pass just south of Splash Zone in Oberlin. The FERC environmental impact statement admits there will be "some adverse environmental impacts." More from Cleveland Scene and the Chronicle.
Hundreds of sources about the challenges of transporting petroleum are indexed in OBIS, including hearings before the U.S. Congress, technical reports, videos and reviews. A subject search on petroleum pipeline* is a good starting point. Older documents in the database Indigenous Peoples North America (access from OBIS) show that conflicts over pipeline construction and the native peoples of North America have a long, complicated history, attested by two of the images above, captured from the database.
