After President Obama put at least a temporary kibosh on the Keystone XL pipeline earlier
this year, Republican Congressmen tried to portray him as increasingly
isolated on the issue because they had gained some Democratic support.
Well, hold on, cowboy! Turns out that this portrayal is not quite a true
fact. The Canadian people don’t want new, sludge-filled pipelines,
either—at least, not cutting through their land!
Stymied by the fact that the dirty, gritty tar sands oil is trapped
in the landlocked province of Alberta, Canada’s prime minister, Stephen
Harper, is looking for alternative routes to get the stuff to one coast
or the other. He’s actually taking the drastic measure of considering
how to move it across Canada instead of the United States. Audacious!
However, he declares he’ll
never again be held hostage to U.S. politics. (Excuse me? Canadian
dirty oil. Canadian companies. Canadian profits. Why was he ever
embroiled in U.S. politics in the first place?)



Harper is considering three different routes, using some combination
of existing pipelines, plus building some new ones. Two routes would run
west across Canada to Vancouver, on the Pacific Coast, and one would
run east to the Atlantic Coast. But he’s not taking into consideration
the objections of Canadian citizens. First of all, Vancouver’s mayor is
opposed because of the possible effect on tourism. The other main
concern stems from the same issue that stopped the pipeline in the U.S.
It would cut across agricultural aquifers and pose a danger of poisoning
the water upon which farming depends.
The pipelines would carry a dirty sludge called bitumin that is prone
to causing leaks in pipelines. It has to be extracted from the tar
sands in the first place by creating excessively high carbon dioxide
emissions, and then has to be thinned with chemicals for transport to
faraway refineries. In 2010, a spill of diluted bitumen in Battle Creek,
Michigan closed down the Kalamazoo River. Two years later, parts of the
river remain closed in spite of a cleanup effort that cost over $720
million.
Harper’s government is taking extreme measures to block opposition to
the pipelines. Public hearings have been pushed forward so that groups
don’t have time to organize and mount a challenge on the basis of
environmental impact; limits have been placed on public comments; the
government is threatening to revoke the charitable status of
environmental groups; environmentalists have been added to a list of
potential terrorists. But one obstacle might be beyond the ability of
the government to control—indigenous groups have to be consulted before a
pipeline can be built across their land, and that means negotiating
with 50 different tribes.
Oh, and one other slight obstacle. The eastern route is supposed to
travel through Canada as far as Vermont, and then through Vermont and on
to Maine. The ultimate goal is to end at Maine’s Casco Bay. Another
funny thing, though. Those Mainers seem quite attached to their fishing
and tourism industries. Vermonters and Mainers are joining forces—ready
for a fight, if need be, to stop the project.