Why I think "the Pipeline" thing is a BAD idea:

[IdaBriggs]

Plumbers.

Yeah, I said it.

Plumbers.

The human race has been building SEWAGE pipelines for HOW LONG?

Ever had one with "issues" in your home?

Lots of people have problems with them - that is why PLUMBERS are necessary.

So, to recap, if we can't safely send SEWAGE someplace without having to deal with things like "burst pipes", "rotted pipes", "clogged pipes", "broken pipes", etc. what kind of an IDIOT thinks this pipeline is going to be "safe" for the environment?

Got any pipe stories you want to share?

Do it - I DARE YOU. And then someone remind those idiots in Washington that the reason this is a BAD IDEA is IN THE FREAKING YELLOW PAGES!!!





Okay. Better now.

[MineralMan]

1. All plumbing requires maintenance.

They just relined all the sewer main lines in St. Paul, MN. Or, at least, they're doing it as an extended project. They did my street this year. The old main sewer lines in my 1950s subdivision was having problems. So, they relined the pipes with plastic liners that were installed and cured in place without digging up the street.

I don't know where you live, but there are pipelines everywhere. They supply you with water and sewage handling. They bring natural gas to your home and to businesses. There are pipelines throughout most cities. Yes, they require maintenance, but they give excellent service for many years. You don't see them. You don't even know most of them exist.

Properly installed and maintain pipelines cause very, very few problems, especially given the hundreds of miles of them under every city. We know how to build pipelines. We know how to maintain them. We just have to use that knowledge to create and maintain good pipelines.

Ever seen a train accident? Trains full of tank cars are the alternative to pipelines. You may remember the oil tanker train that exploded in the heart of a Canadian town. Trains need far more maintenance than pipelines, and are dangerous, as well.

[A Little Weird]

16. It's true there are pipelines all over the place

There are pipeline problems everywhere too. This website has examples of both explosions and leaks: http://www.naturalgaswatch.org/?cat=8

The Keystone pipeline is all about moving a product from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. It primarily benefits an elite few who stand to gain financially. But if a problem occurs, the brunt of the damage will fall on people throughout the midwestern U.S. It's a prime example of privatizing the profits while socializing the costs. The fact that it has happened before should not be an excuse to let it happen again.

[Stargazer99]

35. I'm reminded of the "wonderful, responsible" job BP did (laugh here)

If any investor or anyone making a profit or part of a profit from this pipe line had their personal assets at risk for damages it might be sensible, but as a tax payer I am damn tired of paying for those who profit and destroy job/people/health. Trains are no better, probably as "well maintained". If this goes through and I think it might...let the people of the 4 states the aquifer have at it with those who profit from it

[MineralMan]

2. Here's a handy map of natural gas pipelines

in Michigan. You probably have one of these near where you live. When was the last time you saw anything about these pipelines in the news?

[sabrina 1]

10. We see it all the time, when I lived on LI eg, it was a huge topic, the need to get rid of all

these environmental hazards and start doing what every other civilized nation is doing, begin the process of switching to Alternative energy.

Where I am now, I am happy to see Solar Energy businesses starting up, trucks going around the area to install Solar Panels, people doing it on their own.

In fact we can now buy a 'do it yourself' system at Home Depot.

What you just posted is the problem. I would think it is not something to use as an example of why we should just accept yet another Environmental disaster.

As an environmentalist and Democrat I would eg, be posting that to say 'we have to change this'.

And we do.

I am happy to see the changes happening faster than I thought in my own neighborhood. We are meeting with the local Solar Energy Co. in a few weeks to see how fast we can move away from the Old, destructive energy dependence that has caused so much harm to this planet. We have our own well, and several people around here now have returned to the old Windmills to generate energy, NOT the huge commercial windmills, the old individual kind. Very exciting.

Young people especially are involved in changing their sources of energy.

[MineralMan]

13. OK. You let me know when it's time to

shut those pipelines down. Have you bought an all-electric car yet? Progress is being made in alternative energy, and that's a very positive thing, but it's decades away before we no longer are using petroleum-based fuels. At least decades. In the meantime, we still rely to a larger degree on those fuels than most of us realize. Until we can make a serious switch to alternatives, we'll still be using petroleum-based fuels. They have to be transported one way or another. I personally prefer pipelines to tank cars on railroad tracks. That's just me, though.

[tecelote]

26. Since most of the oil will be exported, this has nothing to do with the car we drive.

Everything to do with profit at any expense.

Is it worth it?

[sabrina 1]

56. We are making a serious switch to alternatives. Our house, which we bought two years ago, is

outfitted with a huge woodburning stove in the basement that heats the hot water, three other woodburning stoves, that make the use of oil or gas negligible, which is why we are looking to install outside Solar panels.

We live in Amish country, where there houses are built without any of the pipelines, no hookups to electric companies, absolutely no dependence on oil or gas whatsoever.

More and more people are buying Amish homes which are off the grid completely, the farmers use horse drawn ploughs and one of our friends just bought an Amish farm, which has an eight year old house with no hookups, pipes or anything else such as the picture you posted. And the people are motivated to completely remove themselves from any dependence at all on oil and gas.

Demand for oil is down, the transition is happening faster than people anticipated. I don't own a car since you asked. Working from home cuts down on the need for more than one car in a family. The Amish do not own cars here, they manage beautifully with horses and carriages, which we could also.

I am excited about the prospect of not depending on oil cartels and pollution anymore. And I am not alone. Computers, which can also be operated by solar and wind energy, have made it possible to work from home, making it desirable for many young people to move out of congested areas where they are able to cut down drastically on their dependence on oil.

The oil era is coming to an end. It was short in the scheme of things. I am happy to be part of the change back to more efficient and natural methods of energy production.

[rosesaylavee]

11. Yes, there are pipelines - but these were NOT built for tar sands.

Tar sand pipelines have been failing due to their very corrosive nature.

Seriously, MM, we know there are pipelines all over the country, we live here too. Tar sands is NOT the same as Natural Gas which these pipelines were designed for.

Check out these links about tar sand spills. These pipelines are moving highly corrosive oil thru pipes not designed for the material. These threaten our water supplies, pollute the lands where they mined and then spilled AND if we burn this oil, our climate will not recover.

http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/04/24/another-pipeline-leak-enbridge-alberta-clipper-line-67-leaking-tar-sands-bitumen

http://surfgreatlakes.wordpress.com/2014/01/19/breaking-oil-leak-on-massive-pipeline-pushing-tar-sands-through-the-great-lakes/

Ask the people who used to live in Mayflower Arkansas how safe their pipeline was.

and more here... google pipeline

More info here about pipeline leaks: http://tarsandssolutions.org/tar-sands/spills-and-leaks

[Odin2005]

50. Holy Jesus!

[rosesaylavee]

14. If you are kidding, let me know - Enbridge Oil Spill in the Kalamazoo River

http://michiganradio.org/term/kalamazoo-river-oil-spill

http://environmentreport.org/enbridge_oil_spill.php

http://www.epa.gov/enbridgespill/

[Spazito]

17. I think there are two big issues when it comes to not wanting the XL pipeline...

One, it doesn't benefit the US public in any way, it is a pipeline that only benefits Canada's economy (due to the taxes levied on the oil companies working out of Canada, employment opportunities, etc., not to mention helps keep Conservatives in Canada in power currently), the dirty oil would traverse the US down to Texas, be refined in their refineries, refineries that do not have any substantive environmental regulations to deal with, and then loaded on tankers to be shipped and sold to China, India, etc.

Two, the tar sands are an environmental nightmare, the more difficult it is for those extracting the dirty oil, the more expensive it is for the multinational corporations to both extract and then ship their product the better.

[PDJane]

19. The biggest problem with the XL pipeline is the stuff that will be shoved through it.

Natural gas pipelines do not have the same problems as pipelines carrying dilbit. Dilbit is abrasive, corrosive, and incredibly flammable. It's not a matter of if it will leak, but when it will leak.

It's dangerous. The stuff is much more toxic, for starters. When it leaks, the diluent evaporates and the stuff sinks. It can't be totally cleaned up; that's why you see people running around with rolls of paper towels, trying to get the stuff before it sinks into the soil...and the water table.

Moreover, just getting at the tar sands means an increase in carbon dioxide; to get it, old growth forests are clear cut. It's absolutely the wrong thing to do if we want to have a habitable planet.

[CrispyQ]

38. "...the water table."

Maybe MM doesn't get his water from the Ogallala Aquifer.

[Odin2005]

51. I think MM is unwilling or unable to understand the big picture.

He seems to think it is JUST about the pipeline and doesn't see all the other issues connected to it. Unfortunately the vast majority of people share that localized, concrete way of thinking.

[IdaBriggs]

27. One blew up in Royal Oak last year / took out three houses.

One of the home owners worked at a children's activity we attend regularly, so we have been talking about the rebuilding of her home for the last year.

Your point is still valid, but so is mine.

[logosoco]

3. I wish the focus was on solar.

It seems to be booming in Europe and Africa. Here, we seem to want to cling to dirty and outdated sources of energy.
I have had my share of plumbing issues. The thing about sewage is eventually it will break down and help the environment. Not so much with oil and the like.
I sure don't trust that they will have a good amount of "plumbers" on the job for maintenance. That would cost money, and they are all about the profits.

[MineralMan]

4. At the link below, you'll find a map of oil pipelines

in your state:

http://www.dleg.state.mi.us/mpsc/gas/img/crudepipelinesmap.pdf

When was the last time you heard about a problem with any of these? There are pipelines everywhere there are population centers. There's one near you.

[kentauros]

7. And that's only for 6" and 8" lines.

Pipelines as classified as such with a range of 2" (2" to 6" are often "gathering" lines close to the sources being gathered from the ground) all the way up to (the largest I've seen) 48". They may go larger, but then you'd have to make the wall-thicknesses higher for the pressures involved, and that gets too expensive for most pipeline companies. Easier to just put in two smaller pipelines side-by-side in the same 50' easement.

If you don't mind paying a small fee to your state's resources agency, and you have a GIS program (there are free open-source programs out there) you can download full pipeline shape-files of all pipelines in your county. Buying them for the whole state might be too cost-prohibitive, so maybe search for GIS-based map-reader sites with the same info.

Try not to be too appalled by the sheer number of pipelines in and around you now

[MineralMan]

9. I've done that for my area, which is riddled with natural gas

pipelines. There's a huge one that passes not far from my house. I drove by an above-ground distribution facility the other day, and took a close look at it for the first time. It's less than a mile from my house. It's a 36" natural gas line, and the distribution facility takes gas from that line and distributes it through smaller lines that go pretty much everywhere in St. Paul and surrounding eastern suburbs.

I did get one of those GIS programs, so I could explore the pipeline network. It's amazing how much infrastructure is underground everywhere people live.

[kentauros]

12. I briefly worked for Reliant Energy here in Houston

updating their GIS maps from old work orders on existing distribution pipes. I was appalled that they had 12" high-pressure pipelines made out of cast iron and still in use! Like most big companies, if it ain't broke, don't "fix" it. And so, they wouldn't dig it up and fix it unless it was leaking. In which case, they lined the interior with some kind of expanding plastic liner, and covered it over again.

So, Houston still has cast iron pipelines in use from at least 80 years ago, fixing them piecemeal versus just installing new pipelines via HDD (horizontal directional drill.) But, the latter is expensive, no matter how much more practical. And then you have the folks getting into a tizzy over it being a 'new' pipeline getting installed, and not listening to those of us with experience in this kind of thing.

Oh, here's an interactive map for Texas. You should be able to get similar sites for your state either from the state government or any of the big universities that teach GIS and cartography

http://wwwgisp.rrc.state.tx.us/GISViewer2/

[MineralMan]

20. I worked for a gas company in Southern California

for a couple of years, maintaining their physical pipeline maps. That was back in the late 1960s. Adding new lines, down to the individual service lines, and correcting errors in ink on cloth maps. Some of those maps dated back decades, and had been changed and corrected so many times that they were tough to read accurately.

Most of the time, though, I was making copies of segments of the maps for the work crews heading out each morning. It was very interesting. I had no formal training in that type of drafting, but had some general drafting skills, so I ended up being transferred to that job and learned by doing.

[kentauros]

23. While I have done my share of hand-drafting,

all of my pipeline experience has been in AutoCAD. It's all "Civil 3D" now, and such a nice program. No more graphite-covered hands, or eraser dust all over you

GIS is so amazing these days, too. They keep cramming more and more information into the capabilities of it (the ESRI version, that is.) It's not really a mapping program so much as an extreme database system. The last job I was at their lead GIS person had created a web-based map for all of Harris County where you could get detailed info on plats, lots, pipelines, and whatever else might be along your route. It was an impression job he did. I've since learned that also requires a specialized server, alone costing about $50,000. Still, that was a survey company and I'd call that a fine investment in equipment.

[livingonearth]

22. Are any of them carrying tar sands crude?

Just asking because I'm told it makes a difference.

[rosesaylavee]

25. Exactly! You get it!

The pipelines on that map are for the network of Gas pipelines, NOT tar sands. See links in my above post about the many spills that happen when they try to run the very corrosive Tar Sand oil thru existing pipelines.

[B Calm]

55. Look at post 54

[MineralMan]

5. And finally, here's a map of oil and gas pipelines

throughout the United States. Where you live is packed with them:

[aikoaiko]

6. No problems with plumbing.

[KMOD]

8. You really need to take a break from that paper,

it's overtaking all your thoughts, ahahahahahaha

Yeah, we had to have a big chunk of our front yard dug up to replace an old pipe.

[IdaBriggs]

33. Truth - it was honestly why I was thinking of it!

Sewage! Poop! ARGH!!!

And you are right - but I am getting very close - now doing some of the charting since the data has been summarized nicely.

So depressed at the moment...sigh.

[rosesaylavee]

15. Agreed. And I find it pretty distressing to see long time DUers pushing the

RW propaganda. Perhaps they believe it which distresses me more.

How the hell are we to fight this if people on a site like this do not understand the basic problem?

[BrotherIvan]

18. +1

It is strange and highly suspect that *all of a sudden* there is so much " meh, it's no big deal, quit your tree hugging" or "it's just like all the pipelines we already have." Where did these talking points come from?

[rosesaylavee]

24. I do not know... my guess is tho

that if you spend billions to win an election, buy up all the media outlets in a country, mis-information will be shared by many good people unknowingly because if you are not looking for this information, if you are not in 'pitched battle' as a climate activist group where information is shared and distributed, how else would someone know about this? Even if WashPo and NYT run one article on it, how easy is that to miss for an informed reader?

The Koch's stand to gain $100 billion if the Keystone goes thru. Not sure if their money is on the Enbridge Alberta Clipper but my guess would be 'yes'.

No, we are all about the Kardashians in the USA at the moment but the thousands of good courageous people joining 350.org, Climate Reality Project, Citizens Climate Lobby and hundreds like them ... gives me hope that Truth will out, that Truth will win in the end, that we will address this climate crisis before too many have to suffer and die.

[BrotherIvan]

39. You are kinder than I

Those on this board now supporting the pipeline are the same that whip liberals and hippie punch with glee, sauced a healthy dose of sanctimony. The same ones who constantly harangue liberals for criticizing policy in any way; the same ones who blame lost elections on "liberals not voting." And then, about five minutes later, all those wonderful Democrats that are so much better sell us down the river. The only FUs I could think of that might be bigger is to follow the Ryan plan of ending SS and Medicare. But hey, it still could happen. Gotta keep that powder dry!

[rosesaylavee]

44. It's the only way for me to keep

my head. I present on climate issues - almost all of my spare time is spent on this crisis one way or the other. I found this thread and the lackadaisical attitude about the tar sands pipelines to be shocking - esp as I recognize some of the names here and thought they were more on top of things than this. I don't come on this site as much as I used to so don't know about what other pipeline threads there have been... maybe I need to start one of my own to get some much needed information out there.

[BrotherIvan]

45. I strongly urge you to do it

I am very distraught by some of what has been written here as it seems to have come out of the blue. I would love to see a thread seriously talking about it from an economic standpoint, as I assume most of the posturing here is purely political.

[rosesaylavee]

46. I will.

I'll send you a message once I have it up. Probably won't get to it until tomorrow evening.

[BrotherIvan]

59. I meant to say the environmental angle

I look forward to your post. Looks like there is quite a lot of educating to be done. Me thinks there is a whole lot of MSM miseducation here. And for Democrats, it's just unbelievable. At the very least from a political standpoint. You have the Koch Bros pushing for this, the guys who are spending untold amounts of money to defeat you. So you push their pipeline so they can be the richest men in the world, which is the reason they've fought so hard for it. So they can outspend you into oblivion? Just dumb dumb dumb.

[RiverLover]

48. Yes! Please do. Many here are buying into right wing BS.

And I'd like to learn more too.

[vi5]

29. IOIOSI

It's O.K. If Obama Supports It

[rosesaylavee]

30. But he doesn't support it, and will most likely veto it if it approved by the Senate.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-house-approves-keystone-pipeline-obama-veto-grows-more-likely/2014/11/14/6f6daffc-6c15-11e4-a31c-77759fc1eacc_story.html

[vi5]

62. We'll see.

I'm anticipating more good cop/bad cop. He'll get enough Senate Dems to vote for it so that it's a veto proof majority and he can just shrug his shoulders and go "Oh well, nothing I can do."

[BrotherIvan]

40. Yeah, that's the strangest part

Right now, all we would normally be hearing about is Obama and his mighty veto pen! (the meme last week after the election). Now I think it's a preemptive surrender, a kind of foaming the runway, for when the Democrats go along with it. Showing that we all know how this kabuki works.

[blackspade]

21. Keystone XL is a scam.

It dosen't produce jobs, will cause major environmental damage, and will do nothing for America's longterm energy security.
What it will do is line the pockets of rich oil men with even more money.

[vi5]

28. Sewer pipes don't make millionaire campaign donors.

If they did, then we might actually not have shitty, rotting, decrepit infrastructure.

[RiverLover]

49. Sounding VERY RW, you are. Read and learn about our current state of aging gas pipelines

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebanker/2013/09/30/aging-us-gas-pipeline-infrastructure-costs-consumers-billions/

[whereisjustice]

31. While the risk of bad spill is real, China and India will get that oil - and they don't give

a damn about air pollution. Or any pollution.

Just look at their plumbing.

[TheKentuckian]

63. And we need to help them reach that aim at our own risk why?

If they are going to get it then let them do it themselves and not through our country to do it.

[whereisjustice]

64. We shouldn't, but there is a gross misconception that this pipeline is for US, it isn't

The pipeline is for Asia, specifically China and India. Keystone makes it even easier for US, China and India to foul the world at an unprecedented rate and removes any incentive for cleaner air/water/energy.

[seveneyes]

32. Serfs up

Until civilization is at the optimum size to sustain harmony among everyone as equals, we will keep digging for suboptimal solutions.

[mathematic]

34. I can't tell if this is parody.

You can't seriously be making the argument that the reliability of household water plumbing can be generalized to industrial engineered oil pipelines?

What next? Your neighbor's collapsing wooden retaining wall in their front yard means we can't trust the engineering of tunnels?

[IdaBriggs]

36. Sigh. Not parody.

I have poop on the brain, and since I live in southeastern Michigan we had a BUNCH of people with sewage issues a few months ago due to flooding. I have also had to replace broken sewage pipes in homes that were built not as long ago as I would wish, regularly called in maintenance because of "tree roots" on "older" sewage pipes, etc.

So, being in a cynical mood, I am saying that I do not trust maintenance and life cycles repair issues associated with any project of this size where flood, fire, earthquake and natural management stupidity can screw it up.

Especially since the idiots who are going to push this through will take the money and run, not be held accountable, and leave the mess for everyone else to clean up (based on everything I know about business, which is way more than I should).

I can't even get roads without potholes, and I'm supposed to trust these people because ... why???

(Be warned - I am in a mood. See Lounge for details. Sigh.)

[RiverLover]

37. Here's a story(1 of many)-"Oil spill at nature preserve 'absolutely terrible'"

The idiots are putting them everywhere, even nature PRESERVES. Not very preserving of nature to do so...


An aerial view of approximately 10,000-gallon crude oil leak in one of Hamilton County park system's four conservation areas, Oak Glen Nature Preserve.(Photo: The Enquirer/Jeff Swinger)

Oil spill at nature preserve 'absolutely terrible'
9:48 a.m. EDT March 19, 2014

Crude oil discovered spilling from an underground pipeline into a stream and marshy pond in a nature preserve in Colerain Township on Monday evening will be "tricky" to clean up, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials said Tuesday. They estimated the volume of the spill to be around 10,000 gallons.

The spill, relatively small compared to others reported in recent years -- both in the region and other parts of the country – didn't injure anyone and was contained to the spill site by Tuesday afternoon, according to state and federal Environmental Protection Agency officials.

The EPA and local officials are holding a press conference at 10 a.m. today to update the public on any developments made overnight.

The cost for cleanup could be steep.

Crews will need to "build a road" to get heavy machinery into the spill area, a part of the Oak Glen Nature Preserve, to vacuum up the oil and dig up contaminated soil. With rain in the forecast, a containment structure will be built to capture oil and keep it from reaching the Great Miami River, just some 500 feet away, or spreading out on the site, said Heather Lauer, a spokeswoman for the Ohio EPA.

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/local/2014/03/18/crews-investigate-colerain-gas-leak/6554741/

[BrotherIvan]

41. +1

Spills are inevitable as has been proven over and over again.

[GeoSquared]

42. It is worse than that.

There have been prior post on DU that there is an oil spill clean up fund that pipelines for conventional oil pay into. Tar sand derived oil are not conventional oils and are therefore exempt from paying into the fund. The fund, however, is NOT exempt from paying for the clean up of any tar sand oil spills. http://priceofoil.org/2013/04/02/toxic-and-tax-exempt/

However, the bad begins long before the tar sand oil ever gets into a pipeline. There are currently, two main ways that tar sands oil is recovered. Surface mining and steam injection.

Surface mining entails strip mining followed by mixing the tar sands with water and then heating the mixture with natural gas from the Canadian Rockies to separate the tar from the sand and clay that it is intermixed with.

Steam injection requires burning natural gas from the Canadian Rockies to generate steam which is then injected into the ground to heat the rock and tar enough that the tar can be pumped to the surface.

Both ways require lots of water and lots of natural gas. The Energy Return on Investment (EROI) for surface mining tar sands is at best 5:1 or five units of energy gained for each unit of energy invested while the EROI on steam injected tar sands is more like 2.9:1. http://priceofoil.org/2013/04/02/toxic-and-tax-exempt/ For comparison conventional oil wells average better than 20:1 EROI.

[RiverLover]

43. That's crazy. Thanks for info. ~nt

[marble falls]

61. The energy ratio figures are pretty important. I've never seen them before but once I understand...

Last edited Sun Nov 16, 2014, 12:58 PM - Edit history (1)

the proofs I will be using them.Thanks for one of the best posts on tar sands I've seen yet!

And thanks for a really good first post, welcome to DU!

[Odin2005]

47. One of the proposed routes goes just west of Fargo.

The Red River Valley has the best farmland in the world and people are going to risk THAT getting fucked up an oil spill?

[2naSalit]

52. Hello...Ogallala Aquifer

Ogallala Aquifer and the KXL...




The biggest thing not being mentioned here is that a vast amount of our croplands in the great plains is watered by this body of water. So if it is contaminated with tar sands filth, how long do you think it would take for the land to recover from that? Where do you intend to get your food from after that?

Contaminate this aquifer and there's going to be more than just a spill going on, it will set up major food deserts that don't already exist. Aside from the fact that the aquifer is not being replenished and drought is persistent in the farmlands of the central plains...

It's more than just a political argument, it's about food insecurity like we haven't seen since the dust bowl era... on steroids because the end of the drought won't fix the problem once this shit tube leaks into the aquifer.

Food for thought - all pun intended.

[Kath1]

53. Thanks for putting it in common sense terms.

KXL pipeline is a horrible idea.

"NO OIL IN OUR SOIL!

[B Calm]

54. 2010 a Canadian Tar Sand Oil Pipeline leaked thousands of gallons of thick oil into the Kalamazoo

River in western Michigan close to where the river drains into Lake Michigan. Four years later and they are still trying to clean it up!

Google it!

[PDJane]

58. One more time, with feeling. There is no way to clean this crap up.

Once it's there, we haven't developed any way to clean it up without causing even more damage to the environment.

It's a really stupid thing to do.

[Nevernose]

57. America takes all the risk

So that we can ship tar sand oil -- truly nasty stuff -- from Canada, halfway across the continent, to be loaded onto ships so that we can enrich the Chinese as well as our own Petrol oligarchs.

Makes perfect sense

[kickysnana]

60. Keystone Pipeline is America's Roman lead water pipes.