"Most scientists, myself included, expect that this is what our future has in store for us. We’ll see a stronger and more variable water cycle, with well-defined regions of haves and have-nots: the dry areas of the world will become drier, and the wet areas will become wetter. Prolonged drought will be the norm in some regions, and more severe storms and flooding will become routine in others. And as the President points out, we can expect our western U. S. snowpack to shrink continuously in the coming decades." "When it comes to huge infrastructure projects like this one, transparency in the evaluation process is essential to build trust between the public, the oil companies, the pipeline company (TransCanada) and the many stakeholders. My personal opinion is that such evaluation is fraught with challenges, that it typically ignores important environmental costs (like those associated with water, ecology and habitat), and that the modeling tools available for the job are woefully inadequate." "And then there’s the issue of the pipeline’s route, which, unfortunately, still includes at least one phase that would traverse the northern section of the United States’ largest and most important aquifer, the High Plains (Ogallala) aquifer. The proposed pipeline route has already been modified once, in order to largely bypass the environmentally sensitive Nebraska Sand Hills, where much of the water in the aquifer is replenished. A possible pipeline rupture there would have posed an unacceptable level of risk to our nation’s water and food supply. The risk of other such ruptures, and of the full environmental impacts, must be fully evaluated, and openly reviewed, along every inch of the pipeline’s proposed route." Contributed by Carmalene Churba
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 05:19:45 +0000
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