***Keystone XL CP Answers

Ogallala aquifer vital ¼ of the countries ag—Keystone XL would cause massive disruptions and contaminations to supply

Steven, “Keystone XL pipeline may threaten aquifer that irrigates much of the central U.S.” [http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/keystone-xl-pipeline-may-threaten-aquifer-that-irrigates-much-of-the-central-us/2012/08/06/7bf0215c-d4db-11e1-a9e3-c5249ea531ca_story.html] August 6

At the heart of their battle is whether the pipeline would pose a threat to the massive Ogallala Aquifer — one of the world’s largest underground sources of fresh water. By one calculation, it holds enough water to cover the country’s 48 contiguous states two feet deep. The Ogallala stretches beneath most of Nebraska from the Sand Hills in the west to the outskirts of Omaha. And it runs from South Dakota well past Lubbock, Tex. Named after a Northern Plains tribe, the Ogallala provides water to farms in eight states, accounting for a quarter of the nation’s cropland, as well as municipal drinking wells. Though early white explorers who saw this apparently arid part of the Great Plains called it a “great American desert,” the aquifer has turned it into America’s breadbasket. The spongelike aquifer formed more than 20 million years ago, when erosions of gravel and sand from the Rocky Mountains were washed downstream. It is replenished by rain and melting snow, but it gets just two to five inches of precipitation a year, according to a TransCanada filing to the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality. Much of the water it holds was absorbed thousands or millions of years ago. In some places the aquifer is buried 1,200 feet deep, but in many places it is at or very close to the surface, often less than five feet below ground. In these places, you can literally stick a stake in the ground and hit water. Extensive stretches of Nebraska’s plains require no irrigation; to keep cattle watered, ranchers just dig a hole and the water flows in. That’s where concerns about the Keystone XL came in. Its original route traversed 92 miles of the Sand Hills and the Ogallala. TransCanada, which said it would bury the pipeline at least four feet underground, could in many places be putting it in water. If the pipeline should spring a leak where it touches the aquifer or even above it, Kleeb and other opponents say, oil could quickly seep into and through the porous, sandy soil. The Ogallala, Kleeb said last year in a television interview, is “a very fragile ecosystem, literally made of sand. . . . To have a pipeline crossing that region is just mind-boggling.”

2NC Link—AT Doesn’t Cross

Keystone runs over the Ogallala Aquifer

Ed, “Environmental cost of Keystone project too great”[http://articles.southbendtribune.com/2012-08-11/news/33157260_1_keystone-xl-tar-sands-oil-pipeline] August 11

2NC AT Keystone Inevitable

No, only the southern portion has been approved—doesn’t affect the aquifer

Broder 7/27

John, “Keystone Pipeline Advances” [http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/27/keystone-pipeline-advances/]

TransCanada, the company seeking to build the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline from oil sands formations in Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries, received the final go-ahead from the federal government on Friday for the southern leg of the project. The Army Corps of Engineers granted the final permits for a 400-mile portion of the pipeline that will run from the major oil depots of Cushing, Okla., to refineries on the Texas coast. President Obama has blessed the southern portion of the pipeline, now dubbed the Gulf Coast Project, while withholding approval on the far more controversial section of the pipeline that runs from Canada through the northern Great Plains.

2NC AT Leaks Small

Keystone doesn’t have the tech to detect pinhole leaks—destroys a large part of the Aquifer without anyone even noticing

Swift 11—NRDC researcher

Anthony, “The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline leak detection system would have likely missed the 63,000 gallon Norman Wells pipeline spill” [http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/aswift/the_keystone_xl_tar_sands_pipe.html] June 10

TransCanada has admitted that Keystone XL’s real time leak detection system will not detect pinhole leaks and can’t be relied upon to detect leaks smaller than about 700,000 gallons a day. Despite this significant shortcoming, the only route that the State Department has seriously considered for Keystone XL would take it through the heart of the Ogallala Aquifer, our nation’s largest underground water source. Enbridge’s recent 63,000 gallon spill on its Norman Wells pipeline in Canada provides an indication of the types of leaks that can go undetected for weeks on pipelines like Keystone XL that rely on conventional leak detection systems to identify leaks. What is really surprising about the Enbridge spill is that 63,000 gallons of oil leaked from a hole in the pipeline that was “about the size of a pinhole.” The Enbridge spill shows what a big deal a small leak can be. A spill on Keystone XL in the Ogallala Aquifer would be far worse. Keystone XL would be an 830,000 bpd tar sands pipeline placed underground, actually running through the Ogallala Aquifer itself in many places. The Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS) for Keystone XL states that the water conductivity - or the rate that water moves through the soil – in the Ogallala Aquifer can be as high as one hundred feet per day. This proves a substantial point, as the SDEIS concedes Keystone XL does not have the technology to detect a single leak that is less than 1.5 - 2% of the pipeline’s flow-rate in real-time. It also mentions that a pinhole leak could go on for weeks before discovery. You can imagine the level of contamination that would occur if a similar situation occurred on Keystone XL in the Ogallala Aquifer – an undiscovered three week spill could contaminate a large three dimensional chunk of the Ogallala Aquifer nearly half a mile long. And responders will not be able to simply remove the contaminated soil – they will have to pump contaminated water out, which will draw more water into the area of the contamination. In short, a Keystone XL tar sands spill in the Ogallala Aquifer would be a disaster.

2NC AT New Route

New route still hits the aquifer—it only avoids some random hills

Song 12

Lisa, “New Keystone XL Route: Out of the Sandhills, but Still in the Aquifer” [http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20120426/keystone-xl-nebraska-sandhills-ogallala%20aquifer-heineman-transcanada] April 26

TransCanada's new route is currently just a "corridor"—a 2,000-foot wide path that will eventually be whittled down to a narrower route. It is among several possible routes identified in a 54-page report that TransCanada submitted last week to Nebraska's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), the state agency in charge of the pipeline's environmental review. The company's preferred corridor avoids the Sandhills of southwest Holt County, just as TransCanada promised it would. But it still crosses through northern Holt County, where the soil is often sandy and permeable and the water table is high—the same characteristics that make the Sandhills so vulnerable to the impact of an oil spill. In some parts of the new corridor, the groundwater lies so close to the surface that the pipeline would run through the aquifer instead of over it. (See map of TransCanada's preferred Keystone XL route.) Hydrogeologist Jim Goeke, a professor emeritus at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said an oil spill in northern Holt County would contaminate the local groundwater, just as it would in southwestern Holt County. "You still have the same kind of problems, essentially, but you get around the Sandhills, and that was the purpose of the rerouting."

2NC AT No Risk of Spills—Empirics

Risk of spills is real—other pipelines prove

Perrin and Fulginiti 11—agricultural economic professors @ U Nebraska Lincoln

Richard and Lilyan, “The Keystone XL Pipeline Project” January 1

The potential Nebraska environmental impacts of the pipeline include scarring of sandhills’ landscapes and related wildlife disruptions, but more importantly, the risk of contaminating waterways, soils and perhaps the High Plains Aquifer itself, due to oil spills. TransCanada claims to have adequate plans for remediation of the construction sites and for responding to leaks.3 The adequacy of those plans and the quality of the pipeline components have been challenged by opponents, however.4 In July, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) called for a more exhaustive environmental impact statement,5 which the State Department has not yet received. The risks of spills is real. Just within the past year the U.S. has experienced pipeline ruptures at Talmadge Creek, Michigan and Red Butte, Utah, damaging several miles of waterways; and pump station leaks occurred at Ft. Greeley and at Prudhoe Bay on the Alaska pipeline.

2NC AT No Risk of Spills—AT Safety Standards

Fuel flowing through Keystone is particularly corrosive—safety standards aren’t designed for it

Swift et al 11—researchers @ NRDC

Anthony, Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Elizabeth Shope, “Tar Sands Pipelines Safety Risks” National Research Defense Council February

DilBit’s Characteristics Can Lead to Weakening of Pipelines There are many indications that DilBit is significantly more corrosive to pipeline systems than conventional crude. Bitumen blends are more acidic, thick, and sulfuric than conventional crude oil. DilBit contains fifteen to twenty times higher acid concentrations than conventional crudes and five to ten times as much sulfur as conventional crudes.14 It is up to seventy times more viscous than conventional crudes.15 The additional sulfur can lead to the weakening or embrittlement of pipelines.16 DilBit also has high concentrations of chloride salts which can lead to chloride stress corrosion in high temperature pipelines.17 Refiners have found tar sands derived crude to contain significantly higher quantities of abrasive quartz sand particles than conventional crude.18 This combination of chemical corrosion and physical abrasion can dramatically increase the rate of pipeline deterioration.19 Despite these significant differences, PHMSA does not distinguish between conventional crude and DilBit when setting minimum standards for oil pipelines. The risks of corrosion and the abrasive nature of DilBit are made worse by the relatively high heat and pressure at which these pipelines are operated in order to move the thick DilBit through the pipe. Industry defines a high pressure pipeline as one that operates over 600 pounds per square inch (psi).31 Due to the high viscosity or thickness of DilBit, pipelines—such as the Keystone tar sands pipeline—operate at pressures up to 1440 psi and at temperatures up to 158 degrees Fahrenheit.32 In contrast, conventional crude pipelines generally run at ambient temperatures and lower pressures. Higher temperatures thin the DilBit and increase its speed through the pipeline. They also increase the speed at which acids and other chemicals corrode the pipeline. An accepted industry rule of thumb is that the rate of corrosion doubles with every 20 degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature.33 At high temperatures, the mixture of light, gaseous condensate, and thick, heavy bitumen, can become unstable.34 Variations in pipeline pressure can cause the natural gas liquid condensate to change from liquid to gas form. This creates gas bubbles within the pipeline. When these bubbles form and collapse they release bursts of high pressure that can deform pipeline metal.35 The instability of DilBit can render pipelines particularly susceptible to ruptures caused by pressure spikes.36

2NC AT Quick Clean Up

No quick clean up—cleanup crew would fail epically

Lange 12

Timothy, “Kalamazoo tar sands spill investigation hints at Keystone XL disaster scenario” [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/11/1108640/-NTSB-chairwoman-says-pipeline-company-behaved-like-Keystone-Kops-in-Kalamazoo-tar-sands-spill] July 11

Having completed a two-year investigation of a devastating pipeline spill of tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, the National Transportation Safety Board has released its major findings. Summing up: "Learning about giant company's Enbridge's poor handling of the rupture, you can't help but think of the Keystone Kops," said NTSB chair Deborah Hersman, referring to the incompetent policemen in silent films. The Calgary-based Enbridge built the pipeline that burst in 1969. It runs from Indiana to Ontario, and is part of a 1,900-mile system. The 30-inch pipeline carries a variety of light and heavy oils, including the heaviest, diluted bitumen, which is extracted from Canada's tar sands deposits. The bitumen is especially corrosive, making it rough on pipelines. Enbridge is a competitor with another Calgary-based company, TransCanada, which seeks to build another pipeline to transport tar sands oil from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast. That one is called Keystone XL, so designated because it is extra large, 36 inches in diameter. TransCanada already has a green light to build a portion of Keystone XL, from Oklahoma to Port Arthur, Texas. But, on environmental grounds, President Obama denied approval for a permit for the 1,100-mile northern section of the XL, which would cross from Canada into the United States. A major reason: worries about pipeline breaks that could contaminate the Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies irrigation and drinking water to eight states. TransCanada claims Keystone XL will only have 11 "significant" spills over its 50-year lifespan. An independent study, however, estimated that there could be as many as 91 spills. But the first phase of the Keystone XL pipeline had 12 spills in 2010 in its first year of operation. So what might happen if the federal Keystone Kops oversaw the operations of Keystone XL? The Kalamazoo spill offers a hint: a f'n disaster, the most expensive pipeline spill in U.S. history, the largest-ever in the Midwest, 850,000 gallons, according to the pipeline company, 1.1 million gallons, according to federal regulators. The river is open again since last month for recreation, but the clean-up is still not over. The cause: Enbridge's who-gives-a-crap-about-safety-when-we-have-fossil-fuel-to-move; and lax oversight by the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Safety Materials Administration, which the company took advantage of. NTSB Chairwoman Hersman said, "Delegating too much authority to the regulated is tantamount to letting the fox guard the hen house." The actual problem is that the foxes regularly tell regulators to go suck eggs and they obey. NTSB's succinct summary of the Kalamazoo spill: The rupture occurred during the last stages of a planned shutdown and was not discovered or addressed for over 17 hours. During the time lapse, Enbridge twice pumped additional oil (81 percent of the total release) into Line 6B during two startups; the total release was estimated to be 843,444 gallons of crude oil. The oil saturated the surrounding wetlands and flowed into the Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River. Local residents self-evacuated from their houses, and the environment was negatively affected. Cleanup efforts continue as of the adoption date of this report, with continuing costs exceeding $767 million. About 320 people reported symptoms consistent with crude oil exposure. No fatalities were reported. As Anthony Smith points out, Enbridge failed at every step along the way. Over several years, it didn't identify the risks to pipeline safety. It ignored indications a spill had begun. It didn't have the resources for reducing the impact of the spill. It hadn't planned for a spill. The closest "first responder" was 10 hours away. In short, Enbridge just didn't care.

MPX: Econ 1NC Mod

Keystone spills would destroy the economy—newest and least biased study confirms

McKibben 12

Bill, “Bitter spill: Leaky Keystone’s economic risks would dwarf benefits” [http://grist.org/oil/bitter-spill-keystone-leakage-is-an-economic-stimulus-we-can-do-without/] March 13

Cornell’s Global Labor Institute issued a big new report [PDF] this morning examining the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, the most comprehensive look yet at its economic impact. And it makes clear just how right President Obama was to block this boondoggle: It would make money for a few politically connected oil companies, but at a potentially staggering cost to the American economy. For once economists looked at the whole effect of the project. Unlike studies paid for by the TransCanada pipeline company that purported to show thousands of jobs created (a number since walked back to “hundreds” of permanent positions even by company spokespeople), this study asks: What happens when there’s a spill? Not if there’s a spill. There’s going to be a spill — the smaller precursor pipeline recently built by TransCanada spilled at least 14 times in its first year of operation, once spewing a geyser of tar-sands oil 60 feet into the air. In fact, the new Cornell report estimates that we can expect 91 significant spills over the next half century from Keystone, in large part because the bitumen it would carry south from Alberta is like liquid sandpaper, scouring the steel of the pipe. And when the spill happens? In 2010, a six-foot gash in a tar-sands pipeline let a million gallons of crude pour into the Kalamazoo River. Fifty-eight percent of people in the area reported adverse health effects from the evaporating oil; the river is still closed; clean-up costs are likely to be higher than $700 million. The pipeline’s owner had to buy out more than a hundred homes and relocate the residents. Multiply by 91. And remember that the Keystone XL pipeline would cross the Ogallala Aquifer, source of 30 percent of the nation’s irrigation water, not to mention many of its farming jobs. The six states the pipeline would run through would together reap about 20 permanent jobs from Keystone XL; together those states employ more than half a million farmers. Do the math. And then remember something else: Renewable energy jobs are growing at twice the rate of the rest of the economy. If a wind turbine topples over, that’s bad news, but it doesn’t turn the aquifer black.

Leads to war

Mead 9

Walter Russell. Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. 2/4/9. http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=571cbbb9-2887-4d81-8542-92e83915f5f8&p=2.

So far, such half-hearted experiments not only have failed to work; they have left the societies that have tried them in a progressively worse position, farther behind the front-runners as time goes by. Argentina has lost ground to Chile; Russian development has fallen farther behind that of the Baltic states and Central Europe. Frequently, the crisis has weakened the power of the merchants, industrialists, financiers, and professionals who want to develop a liberal capitalist society integrated into the world. Crisis can also strengthen the hand of religious extremists, populist radicals, or authoritarian traditionalists who are determined to resist liberal capitalist society for a variety of reasons. Meanwhile, the companies and banks based in these societies are often less established and more vulnerable to the consequences of a financial crisis than more established firms in wealthier societies. As a result, developing countries and countries where capitalism has relatively recent and shallow roots tend to suffer greater economic and political damage when crisis strikes--as, inevitably, it does. And, consequently, financial crises often reinforce rather than challenge the global distribution of power and wealth. This may be happening yet again. None of which means that we can just sit back and enjoy the recession. History may suggest that financial crises actually help capitalist great powers maintain their leads--but it has other, less reassuring messages as well. If financial crises have been a normal part of life during the 300-year rise of the liberal capitalist system under the Anglophone powers, so has war. The wars of the League of Augsburg and the Spanish Succession; the Seven Years War; the American Revolution; the Napoleonic Wars; the two World Wars; the cold war: The list of wars is almost as long as the list of financial crises. Bad economic times can breed wars. Europe was a pretty peaceful place in 1928, but the Depression poisoned German public opinion and helped bring Adolf Hitler to power. If the current crisis turns into a depression, what rough beasts might start slouching toward Moscow, Karachi, Beijing, or New Delhi to be born? The United States may not, yet, decline, but, if we can't get the world economy back on track, we may still have to fight.

MPX: Econ Ext

Ogallala Aquifer disruptions destroys the national economy

Pierce 11

Charles, “Something We Should Be Worried About, but Aren't: Water.” [http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/ogallala-aquifer-6531527] October 27

Make no mistake. You screw with the Ogallala Aquifer and you screw with this nation's heartbeat. Twenty percent of the irrigated farmland in the United States depends upon it. Pumping the water from it is all that has kept the Dust Bowl from coming back, year after year. Any damage to it fundamentally changes the lives of the people who depend on it, their personal economies, the overall national economy, and what we can grow to feed ourselves. Absent the aquifer, and the nation's breadbasket goes back to being a prairie, vast grasslands that the people who first crossed them referred to as a desert. You end up with dry-land corn and some dry-land wheat. And the aquifer is far easier to empty than it is to fill. The technology to fully exploit it has existed only since the 1950's, and portions of it are already dangerously low. It won't be fully recharged until the next Ice Age.

Ogallala aquifer is the lynch pin of the High Plains economy

Peterson et al 3

Jeffrey, Thomas Marsh, Jeffery Williams, “Conserving the Ogallala Aquifer: Efficiency, Equity, and Moral Motives” [http://www.choicesmagazine.org/2003-1/2003-1-04.htm] February

To say that the High Plains economy now "runs on water" is probably no exaggeration. Irrigated crops provide feed for livestock, which are in turn the primary inputs for local meat processing plants. Water is also essential for the livestock production and meat processing industries. The crop, livestock, and meat processing sectors form the core of the regional economy, accounting for a large share of employment and gross output. Because the Ogallala recharges very slowly, the High Plains economy is dependent on a finite resource.

MPX: Drinking Water

Pipeline contaminations destroys 82% of the populations drinking water

Visconti 11

Grace, “Op-Ed: Keystone XL pipeline project threatens Ogallala Aquifer (Part 3)” [http://digitaljournal.com/article/311242] September 7

Calgary - With the installation of the Keystone XL pipeline, the huge Ogallala Aquifer that supplies fresh water to 82 percent of the people living within its boundary is at risk. The consequences of any major oil leaks created by the Keystone XL pipeline will be alarming if it contaminates the Ogallala Aquifer. The Ogallala Aquifer stretches across the High Plains of the U.S. extending northward from western Texas to South Dakota. It is the most important geological formation in the High Plains that underlies 450,000 square kilometers or 174,000 square miles and covers eight states including: South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, and Texas. The danger of a pipeline crossing this aquifer is that although vast, it is shallow, leaving the water open to contamination from pipeline leaks. About 30 percent of the nation’s groundwater is used for irrigation from this aquifer. Additionally, the aquifer system supplies drinking water to 82 percent of the people living within its boundary. Proof that a pipeline leak can cause considerable damage occurred in the spring of 2011 in northern Alberta when a devastating leak caused ecological contamination and severe illness to the people. It was the worst oil spill since 1975, as 4.5 million litres (28,000 barrels) of oil spilled across the Peace River watershed in northern Alberta. The pipeline was 44 years old. One of the worst spills in Alberta was in 1975, when crude oil was unloaded into the Bow River – about 6.5 million litres worth. Effects of this recent spill were devastating for the natural habitat as well as the people living in the area and can be viewed at David Suzuki’s blog Alberta’s biggest oil spill in 30 years is a call to action for Canadians.

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