Just one day after Donald Trump signed an executive order overriding both sound judgement and market demand to put both Keystone XL and the DAPL pipelines back in the … pipeline, something has happened that brings a reminder of exactly why people were protesting these things in the first place.
xTop two stories on @Reuters home page right now. pic.twitter.com/EWGkJZVHR4
— Stephen Nellis (@StephenNellis) January 24, 2017A pipeline has spilled 200,000 litres — or 200 cubic metres — of crude oil on First Nations land, north of Stoughton.
In this case, the oil spill on the Ocean Man First Nation appears to have been contained in a natural basin, limiting the damage. There’s absolutely no guarantee that the Standing Rock Sioux would be equally lucky should the DAPL pipeline burst on their traditional land or under Lake Oahe.
Since 2006, the United States alone has averaged more than 300 pipeline spills a year, and technology to predict and monitor leaks is notoriously unreliable.