On Tuesday, the US Department of State held its one and only hearing to solicit public feedback on the Keystone XL environmental impact statement.
Outside in the 19 degree weather, there were protests in the “free speech area,” with members of the Fort Peck Reservation carrying a representation of the Lakota prophecy foretelling of a large black snake that would slither across the land, poisoning the water, and destroying the Earth when it goes underground.
Inside it was a slightly more mixed crowd, with a hay farmer named Todd Tibbetts quoted in multiple pieces welcoming the financial benefits from TC Energy (neé TransCanda) and accepting the “very minuscule chance” of a spill. Others expressed concern about the pollution and what they consider to be inevitable spills.
And those that are worried are right, because later that evening, the existing Keystone pipeline sprung a leak in North Dakota, spilling nearly 400,000 gallons of oil. The Department of Environmental Quality estimated on Wednesday afternoon that the spill was 15 feet wide and 1,500 feet long, a stretch of black oil not unlike, when viewed from above, a large black snake.
And at the very moment hay farmer Todd Tibbetts was telling people the paycheck is worth the “miniscule chance” of a spill, the existing Keystone pipeline was spilling oil on to, per the Grand Forks Herald, “an area where a local farmer cuts hay.”
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