It's like these guys keep trying to outdo one another for worst possible idea. If you thought the Keystone XL Pipeline was bad, a newly proposed project is a pipeline moving more heavy tarsands oil than the XL Pipeline would move....but to really shoot for the moon, they're also adding refinery shipping docks along Lake Superior which would be capable of shipping over 13 million barrels of heavy crude oil over the great lakes via oil barges.
OH! And on top of THAT, Enbridge, the same company responsible for dumping nearly a million gallons of tarsands oil into the Kalamazoo river, is behind part of the project.
The company fined for that spill -- Canadian oil transport giant Enbridge -- is behind one of the new projects. Its new venture would nearly double the amount of crude oil shipped on a major pipeline from Canada to Lake Superior -- transporting more oil than the controversial Keystone XL pipeline that has caused an environmental outcry and fierce debate in Congress. The second project involves a refinery on Lake Superior's shore building a dock to load oil barges, allowing the shipment of up to 13 million barrels of crude oil per year throughout the Great Lakes to Midwest refineries and markets beyond.
13 million barrels of heavy crude oil shipped on the Great Lakes each year, from a new refinery along Lake Superior.
I would like to take this opportunity to point out, once again, that the Great Lakes account for 20% of the above ground fresh water in the world, with around 30 million Americans drawing their water supply from it....not to mention watering crops with it.
We DRINK that water. We swim in it. We eat fish from it. I water my garden with it. Our water supply is about ten million times more important than our oil supply.
Maybe we should take a step back and think about the ramifications of when, not if, WHEN an oil barge is damaged, leaks, or goes down. It WILL happen at some point. And the best case scenario isn't much better....
Best case scenario we merely have a refinery on the coast of Lake Superior spewing more sludge into the Great Lakes, right there along with the BP Indiana tarsands refinery. We know the new refinery will be dumping thousands of gallons of poison and sludge into the Great Lakes every day, because that's what the current refineries do.
Refineries dump shit into the lake.
[2007]Under BP's new state water permit, the refinery -- already one of the largest polluters along the Great Lakes -- can release 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more sludge into Lake Michigan each day. Ammonia promotes algae blooms that can kill fish, while sludge is full of concentrated heavy metals.
[snip]
The company will now be allowed to dump an average of 1,584 pounds of ammonia and 4,925 pounds of sludge into Lake Michigan every day. The additional sludge is the maximum allowed under federal guidelines.
-- Article
That's the BEST case scenario here. More shit dumped into the Great Lakes. Worst case is the inevitable: a damaged or even sunken oil barge. And it WILL HAPPEN. Thousands of ships have sunk on the Great Lakes. Tens of thousands. BIG ONES.
The only one most folks know about is the Edmund Fitzgerald. But it's happened all the time. An oil barge sank in Lake Huron JUST LAST YEAR. It will happen.
And the thing is...an oil barge doesn't even need to SINK...it just needs to spring a leak for the oil to get into our water supply.
And this isn't your garden variety of oil. It's tar sands oil. A last, desperate attempt to pretend we have plenty of energy in the ground. It's not EVEN oil.
What's often being shipped isn't the oil seen gushing out of Texas oil towers in old movies. It's tar sands crude or dilbit, a semisolid form of petroleum also known as diluted bitumen.
The sludgy product requires mixture with chemicals or other petroleum products to move through pipelines. Environmentalists argue it's a far harsher product on pipelines, and much more difficult to clean up when spills happen. It was dilbit that spilled during the worst inland oil spill in U.S. history, a July 26, 2010, pipe breach in Marshall that devastated wetlands, Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River. The product combined with river sediments and sank to the bottom, making traditional oil cleanup booms and surface skimmers ineffective.
Article
That we're even taking tarsands and shale oil seriously as an energy source is NOT a sign of plenty. It's low quality, dirty, harder to extract and takes MORE energy to actually turn it into something useful. We're putting more and more energy in and getting less and less energy out. It's the very definition of peak oil.
It's not a sign of bounty. It's a sign we're scraping the bottom of the barrel and need to find a way away from fossil fuels NOW. It's not an occasion to concoct plans to choose oil over water.
Keep your damn filthy, greedy hands off our water.
#NOKXL Blogathon: April 12 - April 22, 2013
You Can Make a Difference
On March 1, 2013, the United States State Department released a Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the Presidential Permit application for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The SEIS evaluates the potential environmental impacts. The purpose of this campaign is to obtain one million public comments in opposition to building this environmentally-destructive pipeline. We hope that this blogathon will make submission of public comments easier.
This effort is being coordinated with Bill McKibben of 350.org and in coalition with the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resources Defense Council, Oil Change International, and Bold Nebraska.
A victim of the recent tar sands oil spill in Mayflower, Arkansas, this bird says it all.
Photograph being used with permission from Fast For The Earth.
We have an exciting line up of prominent lawmakers, environmental activists, and Daily Kos diarists. Each one of them will be posting a diary in opposition to the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline. Some guests will be including a brief "sample comment" that readers can copy and submit at the State Department website. The diaries and "sample comments" can be used as your comments! Readers who have specialized knowledge and skills relating to the pipeline, tar sands, climate change, or the petroleum industry may, of course, choose to create their own comments with additional details.
Comments written by you are reviewed by our government with no media filter. Three of our coalition partners will keep track of the number of comments submitted to the U.S. Department of State.
Please submit your comments through one of the below links:
Let your voice be heard. Our Daily Kos community organizers are Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, boatsie, rb137, JekyllnHyde, Onomastic, citisven, peregrine kate, DWG, and John Crapper, with Meteor Blades as the group's adviser.
Diary Schedule - All Times Pacific
More helpful details are in this diary - DK Blogathon Hosts Eco Coalition in #NOKXL Public Comment Campaign by Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse. Use hashtag #NOKXL to tweet all diaries posted during this blogathon.
1:00 pm: #NOKXL Blogathon: Your voice on the Keystone XL pipeline matters by DWG.
3:00 pm: Daniel Kessler, Media Campaigner for 350.org. (will be rescheduled)
11:00 am: Keystone XL: a pipeline THROUGH the US, not to it by dturnbull, Campaigns Director of Oil Change International.
1:00 pm: #NOKXL: Dilbit in the Pipeline by Agathena.
11:00 am: Keystone XL: Wildlife in the Crosshairs by Target Global Warming, Peter LaFontaine is the Energy Policy Advocate for the National Wildlife Federation.
1:00 pm: #NoKXL: The Future Is In Our Hands; Say No To The XL Pipeline Disaster by beach babe in fl.
3:00 pm: #NoKXL: Guess What's NOT in POTUS' Budget! (Rhymes with Shnipeline) by ericlewis0.
Note: All diaries for this day were rescheduled due to the Boston Marathon bombings.
9:00 am: KXL will carry as much carbon as all the cars on the West Coast, plus Michigan, NY, and Florida. by Bill McKibben, Founder of 350.org.
12:00 pm: peregrine kate.
1:00 pm: Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA13), Member of the United States House of Representatives.
3:00 pm: WarrenS.
Please remember to republish these diaries to your Daily Kos Groups. You can also follow all postings by clicking this link for the Climate Change SOS Blogathon Group. Then, click 'Follow' and that will make all postings show up in 'My Stream' of your Daily Kos page.
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