Beware: Keystone XL Pipeline Maneuvering Still Underway

Levi Rickert, editor-in-chief in Native Challenges. Discussion »

Trans Canada

OTTAWA - Even though President Obama announced last week the final decision for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would be delayed until 2013 - after the 2012 Presidential election - maneuvering is still being done by TransCanada, the company that will own the pipeline.

"The New York Times" reported in its Thursday edition that Russell K. Girling, TransCanada's chief executive, said on Wednesday work on the southern portion of Keystone would not take place until all approvals, including that of State Department, were in place.

In another development this week, there was a deal reached between TransCanada and the state of Nebraska, which will reroute the pipeline from the Sandhills - where the water table is high for the Ogallala Aquifer, a source of drinking water for much of the central United States, according to the "Journal Star," a Nebraska newspaper.

The Keystone XL Project is a 1700 mile long crude oil pipeline that would transport between 700,000 to 900,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The 1700 mile long pipeline will extend from Alberta, Canada and pass through the states of Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas on its way to the Gulf of Mexico.

The proposed pipeline coming down through the Plains states has caused great concern, particularly among the Oglala in South Dakota. TransCanada's proposed pipeline route is right though the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations. It will cross the Oglala Sioux Rural Water Supply System in two places.

"The Keystone XL pipeline… would threaten, among other things, water aquifers, water ways, cultural sites, agricultural lands, animal life, public drinking water sources and other resources vital to the peoples of the region in which the pipeline is proposed to be constructed," reads in part a resolution passed by the National Congress of American Indians in June.

posted November 18, 2011 6:20 am est