Michigan protests tar sands oil
Published: July 9, 2010
DETROIT, July 9 (UPI) -- A pipeline carrying oil from tar sands in Canada to markets in the United States is an environmentally risky project, protesters in Michigan said.
Commercial deliveries of crude oil to the U.S. Midwest from the Keystone pipeline from Canada started during the last week of June.
TransCanada, the operator of the pipeline, said a U.S. leg of the pipeline includes more than 1,000 miles of new pipe to northern and Midwest states.
Tar sands from the pipeline would be processed at a Marathon refinery in southwest Michigan, though the Keystone pipeline would not cross the northern peninsula state.
Environmental activists joined Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., in protesting the Keystone pipeline, The Detroit News reports. They claim the pipeline carries the "dirtiest source" of fuel and called on U.S. regulators to embrace more environmentally friendly options.
A second phase of the pipeline would extend nearly 300 miles from Nebraska to Oklahoma by 2011. The extension would increase the capacity of the pipeline from 430,000 barrels of oil per day to 591,000 bpd.
Marathon officials said they were moving forward with the tar sands refinery with the environment in mind.
U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that while tar sand pipelines could increase oil deliveries to U.S. markets substantially, the risk was too great.
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2010/07/09/Michigan-protes...
