The Keystone XL Pipeline Messes with Texas

When Texans are protesting an oil pipeline, you know something is wrong.  Here at Change.org, we’ve been covering the ongoing controversy surrounding the proposed Keystone XL pipeline: the 1,700-mile project to pump extra-polluting heavy tar sands from massive mines in the boreal forest of Alberta, Canada across the entire American heartland to refineries on the Texan Gulf Coast.

TransCanada, the company pursuing this project, is aggressively bullying landowners into allowing the 3-ft diameter pipeline through their property. As you might expect, they have run into resistance in every state they want to cross, and Texans in particular are putting up a fight.

Concerned neighbors who might otherwise be Tea Party activists are becoming eco-activists, organizing their neighbors, distributing flyers, and holding meetings with environmental groups such as the Sierra Club.  Environmental organizers have been surprised by their reception in East Texas, where local support has blossomed from unexpected meeting attendance to letter-writing campaigns and community resistance councils.

Rural Texas does not normally ally itself with the Sierra Club, so what sets this pipeline apart from those that already snake across the Lone Star State? It is the heavy-handed tactics TransCanada is employing to blaze its oily trail through America. And especially in Texas, such strong-arming from a Canadian company—with major Chinese investors—feels a lot like foreign aggression.

TransCanada surveyors appear on private property unannounced, only to followed by land agents who push property owners to sign complicated easement agreements on the spot. If that fails, this company has already established a record of suing American citizens to have the desired parts of their property condemned under eminent domain, which allows the government to seize control of private property in the name of public interest (with monetary compensation).

TransCanada has filed at least a dozen such lawsuits in South Dakota, even through the project has not been approved, and Change.org’s Jess Leber recently reported on one Oklahoma family’s countersuit to try to protect their land.

Despite recent high profile pipeline spills and leaks, TransCanada has done nothing to allay the concerns of citizens wary of having hot, corrosive oil pumped through their property contained by just half an inch of steel.  TransCanada told a carpenter named David Daniel that it would have to clear most of the trees in the heart of his property.  He was justifiably worried about what would be left of his land. He told the Los Angeles Times:

"I asked them, what are the chances of this thin-wall, high-pressure pipeline rupturing, compared to other pipelines? They said there's no study available — we won't know till the line has been in service for many years. So I'm a lab rat on my own property," Daniel said.

For people like David Daniel, tar sands opposition is not about importing oil that emits 82% more greenhouse gases than normal, this is about protecting their homes and families.  There is no shortage of good reasons to oppose this pipeline.

The Obama Administration is still deciding whether or not to approve this project; it is not too late to make your voice heard.  Please sign this petition to tell the State Department to listen to the American people and reject this lose-lose, risky and unwanted tar sands pipeline.  I’m sure for some of us, this will be the first time we’ve been able to use this rallying cry, but TransCanada: “Don’t Mess With Texas!”  And can we protect the rest of the heartland too?

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Photo credit: Arthur Chapman via Flickr