(Gov. R-NE) Heineman receives final report on rerouted (XL) pipeline

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Omaha World Herald

By JOE DUGGAN

LINCOLN — A final state report on the rerouted Keystone XL pipeline does not appear to raise serious red flags about the project's safety.

Gov. Dave Heineman, who received the report late Thursday, now has 30 days to review it and make a decision on the new route.

He declined to offer first impressions Friday, saying he needs more time to read the document from the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality.

The report, which has more than 2,000 pages, makes no recommendation on whether the pipeline should be approved.

FULL story at link.



Read more: http://www.omaha.com/article/20130104/NEWS/130109781/1685#heineman-receives-final-report-on-rerouted-pipeline

[AtheistCrusader]

1. Why is it we are able to do this for oil, but we can't

do a major public works project to build a grid of pipes that can be used to move freshwater around for farming, to get us through these current and future droughts?

[think]

2. So it still runs over areas of the Ogallala Aquifer:

although it still runs above parts of the Ogallala Aquifer. If the pipeline does fail, spills are not expected to cause wide-scale contamination to the aquifer, said Mike Linder, DEQ's director.

~Snip~

In addition to skirting the Sand Hills, the new route also avoids many fragile soils in northern Nebraska. The department says spills would remain “localized” in the aquifer.

Building a pipeline to carry crude oil steamed out of tar-sand deposits across one of worlds largest aquifers. What could go wrong?

The Ogallala Aquifer, part of the High Plains Aquifer System, is a vast yet shallow underground water table aquifer located beneath the Great Plains in the United States. One of the world's largest aquifers, it covers an area of approximately 174,000 mi² (450,000 km²) in portions of the eight states of South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. It was named in 1898 by N.H. Darton from its type locality near the town of Ogallala, Nebraska.[1]

About 27 percent of the irrigated land in the United States overlies this aquifer system, which yields about 30 percent of the nation's ground water used for irrigation. In addition, the aquifer system provides drinking water to 82 percent of the people who live within the aquifer boundary.[2]....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer