Opposition to TransCanada pipeline is unrelenting
While the cross-border fate of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline is still up in the air American opposition to the southern section currently under construction in Texas and Oklahoma is mounting.
Keystone XL’s southern leg is on schedule to begin operations by the end of 2013. Once it does it will pipe oil from Cushing Oklahoma to refineries on the Texas coast. TransCanada hopes to win presidential consent to build a northern leg connecting the pipeline to Hardisty Alberta.
Since the southern leg was approved in August 2012 many who oppose it have joined protest organizations one of the largest being Tar Sands Blockade based in Texas. Tar Sands Blockade has been the face of construction site pickets including a 10-day protest camp in September in a forest the pipeline was slated to cross. That battle ended when TransCanada rerouted the pipeline around the forest but the war continued. Actress Daryl Hannah was arrested in October for blocking a construction crew. In November two activists began a hunger strike (now in its 34th day) demanding an end to construction. And in December three activists wedged themselves inside a section of the pipe for several hours before being pulled out and charged with petty trespassing. Overall 30 people have been arrested at construction site blockades.
On January 3 Tar Sands Blockade began its largest pipeline protest training camp to date with over 200 people registered to attend. Training will culminate in a “mass action” on January 7 in Houston. Spokesperson Ron Seifert is tight-lipped about what the mass action will be but says the training itself will focus on teaching people about the pipeline project what their rights are and how best to oppose it through peaceful resistance.
Tar Sands Blockade and most who oppose the Keystone XL pipeline project are focused on two main grievances: they do not want diluted bitumen from the Alberta oilsands which they contend is exceptionally toxic to be transported across the U.S. and they say TransCanada has seized private land through the use of fraudulent eminent domain claims.
“Landowners in Texas and Oklahoma are outraged by the notion that private foreign corporations can take a property through eminent domain for their own financial benefit without explicitly stating any public good with the project” explains Seifert.
“A lot of landowners feel that their property is their defining commitment” he says. “So it’s personally devastating to know that this project which poses an imminent threat which could actually end up poisoning the land or even worse is going to be destroying [their land]…. Landowners have reported that in their interactions with TransCanada land agents they were told that this was a standard oil pipeline just like any other flowing through Texas…. When we all know that it’s not going to be crude oil whatsoever it’s going to be this exotic new tarsands that’s largely untested and thought to be much more dangerous and caustic.”
TransCanada’s Grady Semmens says much of what Seifert says is incorrect. He argues the diluted bitumen that would flow through the Keystone XL should it ever run from Alberta to the Gulf Coast is thoroughly studied and no more toxic or corrosive than conventional oil.
“There are many different grades of crude oil transported through pipelines every day and that includes diluted bitumen…. There’s really no difference in terms of their characteristics” says Semmens. He also points out it’s a moot point as long as the Keystone line is not connected to the oilsands.
“When it comes to eminent domain issues we make every effort and have done everything according to the laws as they stand in the states where our projects are occurring. There’s certainly been some cases and we certainly recognize that not everyone supports our project or our pipeline going across their particular piece of land although we certainly have very good relations with more than 90 per cent of all the landowners along the right-of-way” he says.
Seifert says the goal of Tar Sands Blockade is to stop the pipeline from ever opening and ultimately to move the energy industry away from the oilsands entirely. Despite the growing opposition to this pipeline it may not be enough to change TransCanada’s plans. Semmens says the protests to date have had a negligible effect on construction.
“There hasn’t really been any impact at all on the project on the whole. There’s construction going on in many locations across Texas and Oklahoma on any given day and it’s certainly still on track to be completed and up and running by the end of this year” Semmens says. “For the most part I would say that any delays related to the protests have been very short… in terms of maybe a few hours or a day or something like that where people are standing down or work has stopped and police go in to deal with it.”
