Much has been made of the Keystone XL pipeline lately. I am not going to comment on the ridiculous 'what if' scenarios being bandied about. I am not going to comment about the rampant ignorance on the subject by people who appear to be professional whiners and complainers. These folks will look at a picture or read a talking point and formulate their indignation without checking out any of the facts. What I am about to comment about is the mining itself, to offer a different point of view.
There are some who say that if the pipeline leaks, it will destroy the aquifer. This of course is silly talk. The same argument was made about the Alaska pipeline. What these loons fail to understand is that the tar sands are already ruining the environment by it's mere existence.
A gazillion years ago, natures god dumped billions of barrels of oil ONTO the surface of the land in Alberta, Canada, making it probably the largest toxic dump site on the entire planet. The soil is 'contaminated' with oil. The oil sands are very near the surface making the clean up easier than having to re-mediate soil well below the surface. Notice I use the term 'clean up' and 're-mediate'? So how do they get the oil out? The caustic, smelly, thick 'crude' on the ground and dump into a pipeline? Simply put, they dig out the contaminated soil, remove the oil and leave clean 'sand'. I don't know about you, but this sounds more like a toxic dump site clean up operation. Maybe because that is exactly what it is. You should see some of the before and after photos and videos after the land is reclaimed. Where a moon-like landscape once existed is replaced by lakes, ponds, forests...etc.
So I ask, what is the big deal?
No comments:
Post a Comment