Editorial

Look, I'm a progressive and I oppose the Keystone Pipeline for a number of reasons, but these "facts," widely posted on Facebook and going viral on other media as well, are just plain wrong.  In fact, they're so misleading and inaccurate that they risk winning the argument for the other side if the case against the pipeline is reduced to these incorrect points. Let's set the record straight:

1. "ALL pipelines leak."  True, but not everywhere and not all the time and not in ways that cannot be corrected.  The leaks, when detected, can be sealed and the ground remediated,  And if someone argues "the leaks can't be detected," then ask them how they know, in that case, that all pipelines leak. Also, here's a map of the existing pipelines already crossing the U.S., including across the Ogallala Aquifer:




2. "When KXL leaks, it will poison the Ogallala Aquifer."  Not necessarily.  Over most of its area, the Ogallala is 50 to 300 feet beneath the ground surface.  A leak would have to go undetected for a long period of time, many years. before it even reached the Ogallala Aquifer, and then for even longer before it seriously degraded water quality.  Meanwhile, if nothing else, the loss of inventory would have been noticed.  One other thought: approximately 30% of underground storage tanks leak, and most gas stations have 3 to 5 tanks.  I'll let you guess how many gas stations are located in the area of the Ogallala Aquifer, yet all those leaking underground storage tanks haven't managed to poison the aquifer.
3. "When the aquifer is poisoned, we will lose 30% of our irrigation water."  Not true.  Even in a worst-case situation where a leak goes undetected for enough years without anyone noticing and has degraded water quality, it would be a highly localized event.  To poison the water to the point where the entire 174,000-square-mile aquifer is rendered useless would require tens of thousands of years, maybe millions, and possibly more petroleum than is found in the entire Alberta tar sands.
4. "27% of the irrigated land in the U.S. will become useless."  Wrong, for the reason described above.
5. "When poisoned, we will lose 30% of our crops." Wrong again, for the same reasons as in 3 and 4.
6. "Millions of people will have to relocate once the aquifer is poisoned."  Another incorrect extrapolation of the mistake that began with Point Number 3.
7. "Aquifers cannot be 'cleaned up.'"  I'm not sure why they put "cleaned up" in quotes, but it's simply not true - aquifers can be cleaned up, restored, and remediated.  I've been doing it for some 30 years now, and there's an entire industry devoted to aquifer restoration.  It's a common practice, due more to pollution from industrial mismanagement and commercial operations like gas stations and dry cleaners than from pipelines.  

The "facts" in the figure are misleading propaganda that are designed more to frighten than to promote an informed debate over the pros and cons of the proposed pipeline,  Again, for the record, I'm against the pipeline for a number of reasons, but I won't tolerate idiotic arguments that can easily be refuted to represent the case against Keystone.

We're better than that.  Leave those tactics to Fox News and the other side of the argument.