The Keystone XL pipeline project of TransCanada Corp. should be halted because the US did not complete an environmental impact review before work started, green advocacy groups said in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday.
The Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth and Western Nebraska Resources Council allege that the public process was a “sham” and that TransCanada has already started construction in the lawsuit filed in Omaha, Nebraska federal court. Governors of five of the six states the pipeline crosses have backed the project, except for Nebraska. TransCanada has strongly denied the claims – all it did in Nebraska was “mow some grass.”
Bloomberg reports the pipeline runs through north-central Nebraska’s Sand Hills region. The work is forcing the clearance of native grasses and relocation of an endangered species of whooping cranes, according to the complaint.
“Like so many claims made by the professional activists who are opposing Keystone, these claims are false – no construction has taken place in Nebraska,” a TransCanada (TSE:TRP) spokesperson told the Financial Post in an emailed statement.
MINING.com reported on Wednesday that the lack of pipelines may not be the greatest threat to the oil sands: Even if both Keystone XL and Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipelines are built expensive to extract bitumen cannot compete with the many new shale oil plays – particularly in the Bakken oil basin – which have pushed US production to its highest level in a decade.
No wonder Enbridge (TSE:ENB), Canada’s No. 2 pipeline company behind TransCanada – busy building out its capacity in Bakken while Northern Gateway wallows in the approval process – said yesterday “it’s the wild west out there at the moment.”
Image shows TransCanada’s Keystone oil pipeline construction in North Dakota.
5 Comments
Ed233
I say forget about the pipelines to the USA. Let the Americans drive electric or solar bicycles if those US companies haven’t gone bankrupt yet. Or better still, buy the batteries and solar bicycles from China and we’ll sell our oil to them instead. LOL Looking after your money.
Sailor Mac
I support the pipeline as long as it sends refined petroleum products; refined here in Canada!!!! This business of sending raw naterials out to be processed in pure lunacy
Tom Tinacci
This pipeline project is a no brainer in creating jobs for both the US and Canada, not to mention the additional revenue that will be generated by all the localities along the route. Lodging , food , transportation, supplies, and of course the taxes that will be collected by these sales. The greens are a bunch of morons that think daily lives, businesses,and the mere existense of humanity survives from the thin air. If they put more of their energy into supporting valuable projects instead of bashing them , we would all be better off.
Xavier Energy
China will buy this if we don’t, make no mistake about it. Their consumption will go through the roof if growth continues as expected and securing energy is their top priority. The U.S. is spending all the capital in shale plays which is arguably still in the infancy stage. Canada is probably better off selling to someone else.
Thinkcivic
Greens actually are concerned with real air and real water and know they have to be clean. Thin air? That sounds like a theory of people who think we can eat and drink oil.
Talk to the indiginous people who are getting cancer from water that has been contaminated by tar sands toxic waste ponds.