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Merged Dakota Access Pipeline

I am Native American myself so of course I am following it closely and fully support their efforts to preserve their only water source.
 
Initially I was tending towards NIMBY reactions (and was going to have a dig about the "only water source" thing by pointing out the irony of ND authorities removing water tanks from the protest camp), but after reading the Wiki entry, List of pipeline accidents in the United States in the 21st century, I think that perhaps the protesters may indeed have valid worries about the potential for (at a minimum) pollution events from spills.
I'm in the industry and am horrified by the rate of accidents and failures of US pipelines.

When you think of dangerous oil/gas pipelines, you immediately think of the carnage caused on Nigerian pipelines from sabotage or theft, not the US (or indeed, Canada).
 
We had our own fight up here in Boston (Well, Weymouth but you folks don't know where that is)
Looks like we succeeded, too. The proposed pipeline would have come off of the highway, past hundreds of homes and wound up at a compressor station.
 
EHocking said:
Initially I was tending towards NIMBY reactions (and was going to have a dig about the "only water source" thing by pointing out the irony of ND authorities removing water tanks from the protest camp), but after reading the Wiki entry, List of pipeline accidents in the United States in the 21st century, I think that perhaps the protesters may indeed have valid worries about the potential for (at a minimum) pollution events from spills.
I'm in the industry and am horrified by the rate of accidents and failures of US pipelines.

When you think of dangerous oil/gas pipelines, you immediately think of the carnage caused on Nigerian pipelines from sabotage or theft, not the US (or indeed, Canada).
Click to expand...

If it's not transported by pipeline, it will be transported by truck or rail. How do accident rated compare among these three modes of transport?
 
CORed said:
If it's not transported by pipeline, it will be transported by truck or rail. How do accident rated compare among these three modes of transport?
Click to expand...

They are rare but can make a lot of victims like this light crude incident 1 or 2 years ago where a train went downhill without conductor , derailed, then exploded.

A few more to show that they are not rare.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-north-dakota-oil-train-20150506-story.html

http://www.sightline.org/2015/05/06/oil-train-explosions-a-timeline-in-pictures/

So pipeline may be better in human cost, but they seem to burst more often open.

So.... What's better ? I tend to go toward less human cost. So pipeline.

But it is not about pipeline versus train. It should be pipeline versus train versus having a better politic on nuclear and renewable.
 
CORed said:
If it's not transported by pipeline, it will be transported by truck or rail. How do accident rated compare among these three modes of transport?
Click to expand...
I made no suggestion of alternatives, I merely observed that the current state of pipeline safety in the US is appalling.
Pipelines are the most sensible, but if their safety record is taken in to account, then the people protesting one being run through their community have every reason to be concerned for their personal safety and the safety of the environment.
 
Dakota Access Pipeline Saga Turns Violent Amid "Largest Gathering Of Native Americans

Has anybody else been following this?:


Dakota Access Pipeline Saga Turns Violent Amid "Largest Gathering Of Native Americans Since The Little Bighorn"

In what has become the largest gathering of Native Americans in more than 100 years, a coalition of dozens of tribes across the country oppose the pipeline’s construction, citing concerns that it would put the Missouri River – as well as the network of lakes and tributaries that the “Big Muddy” is connected to - at risk of contamination via oil spill and lead to the destruction of culturally significant sites for the Sioux tribes in the area.
Click to expand...


Did the Dakota Access Pipeline Company Deliberately Destroy Sacred Sioux Burial Sites?

Only hours after lawyers representing the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed evidence in federal court documenting how some of the Dakota Access pipeline’s proposed route would go through a sacred burial site, the company unexpectedly began working on that very site. As bulldozers cleared earth, hundreds of Native Americans from many different tribes rushed onto the construction site to protect the sacred site. In response, the company’s security forces attacked the Native Americans with dogs and pepper spray.
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Worth noting that the burial site was 20 miles from the pipeline's nearest currently active work site. They had to drive the dozers 20 miles through uncleared right-of-way to get to the site. Then dogs and pepper spray - the company could not be much more antagonistic if they tried.
 
Standard tactic in construction industry. if you learn directly (through bulldozing) or indirectly (through such court filling) that there is a prehistorical/historical/whatever site , just destroy it as quick as possible before anybody stops you : afterward your construction will not be stopped (but it could if the site stays) and you will get utterly shamelessly minimal fines compared to the cost of waiting.

It is not special of the US by the way, in France I know it happened quite a few time, and I am betting it did in other countries with such protection as well.
 
Huge gathering of Indians? Access to guns and firewater? What could go wrong?
 
Showdown over oil pipeline becomes a national movement for Native Americans

From article:

"At issue for the tribes is the 1,172-mile Dakota Access Pipeline, or DAPL, which runs through North and South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois and has a capacity to transport more than 500,000 barrels of oil a day. The $3.8 billion pipeline now under construction was approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to cross under the Missouri River a mile north of the reservation.

That river is the source of water for the reservation’s 8,000 residents. Any leak, tribal leaders argue, would cause immediate and irreparable harm. And tribal leaders point to what they consider a double standard, saying that the pipeline was originally going to cross the Missouri north of Bismarck, the state capital, but was rerouted because of powerful opposition that did not want a threat to the water supply there.

The tribe says it also is fighting the pipeline’s path because, even though it does not cross the reservation, it traverses sacred territory taken away from the tribe in a series of treaties that have been forced upon it over the past 150 years.

The reservation sued the Corps in July, saying that the agency had not entered into any meaningful consultation with the tribe as required by law and that the Corps had ignored federal regulations governing environmental standards and historic preservation.

Dean DePountis, the tribe’s attorney, said: “This pipeline is going through huge swaths of ancestral land. It would be like constructing a pipeline through Arlington Cemetery or under St. Patrick’s Cathedral.”"
 
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