Home » News » Nebraska pipeline opponents applaud EPA stance
News
Nebraska pipeline opponents applaud EPA stance
News Articles | Lincoln Journal Star | Art Hovey | July 21, 2010
Read the full article on the originating site
All eyes were on video screens at Nebraska Educational Television in Lincoln on Wednesday night, but thoughts were obviously divided between what was happening there and the news from Kansas City in the morning.
On the same day Nebraska groups hosted an Interactive Pipeline Summit to call attention to concerns about the proposed Keystone XL petroleum pipeline, word was spreading that the federal government’s environmental watchdog has concerns as well.
The Environmental Protection Agency is recommending TransCanada, developers of a pipeline headed through Nebraska from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast, provide better answers for a draft environmental impact statement being prepared by the U.S. State Department.
The EPA also wants another round of public comment on a project that is scheduled to go through the Nebraska Sandhills and over the Ogallala Aquifer, source of drinking water for 85 percent of the state’s population.
“It looks like the EPA is asking the same questions we’ve been asking and reading the environmental impact statement the same way we were,” said Duane Hovorka of Elmwood, executive director of the Nebraska Wildlife Federation and part of panel put together for the summit.
Ken Winston, lobbyist for the Nebraska chapter of the Sierra Club, agreed. “I think the fact that the EPA has rated the environmental impact statement as inadequate is consistent with the views of most environmentalists,” Winston said prior to appearing before a studio audience of about 40.
TransCanada already has oil flowing in the Keystone pipeline, which passes underground through the Lincoln area west of Seward.
Keystone XL, slightly larger at 36 inches in diameter, is scheduled to come through west of York.
TransCanada wants to start construction in Nebraska on the second pipe next year and to join it with the Keystone along the Nebraska-Kansas border for the trip to refineries at Cushing, Okla.
The two pipes would split again at Cushing and Keystone XL is supposed to go on to the Gulf Coast.
Terry Cunha, a TransCanada spokesman based in Alberta, didn’t want to address Sandhills and Ogallala matters specifically when sought out earlier Wednesday.
“I couldn’t speculate as to why the public’s opinion has changed over the years,” Cunha said. “I think you could look at what’s happened recently with the spill along the Gulf Coast.”
Cunha said TransCanada sees no reason to alter its construction timetable so far, despite the EPA’s reservations.
“We are waiting for the Department of State to come to a decision sometime this year,” he said.
The State Department is the lead agency on the project because it crosses an international border.
Also involved in the Wednesday summit were Paul Blackburn of Plains Justice in Vermillion, S.D.; Marty Cobenais of the Indigenous Environmental Network in Bemidji, Minn.; Jane Kleeb of Hastings and Bold Nebraska; and Ernie Fellows of Mills and Nebraska Landowners for Fairness.
Cobenais said the closer proximity to the Ogallala goes a long way to explaining why Keystone XL is generating more opposition than Keystone.
“They’re going through the aquifer this time,” he said. “Water talks.”
Hovorka puts more emphasis on George W. Bush stepping down as president and Barack Obama stepping up. “I think the message there is that elections matter,” he said.
Tagged with: keystone xl, nebraska, epa, ogallala aquifer, opposition, steward
