By MATTHEW CYBULSKI

Staff Writer

The Keystone pipeline has been a heated debate since it was constructed in 2008.
The debate has spanned two presidents and a prime minister. The debate has
continued in to a quarrel of ethics between convenient oil transportation and
environmental awareness. The next phase of the Keystone pipeline is the XL
pipeline project.
The first two phases of the Keystone start in Hardisty, Alta., and continue on to Steel
City, Nb., and Patoka, Ill. The Keystone project was originally proposed in February
2005 by the TransCanada Corporation to transport crude oil from the oil sands to
refineries in the United States.
U.S President Barack Obama is the deciding factor for approval on this project. The
republican representatives in the U.S. have been trying to seek a bypass for the need
of presidential approval by enacting the Northern Route Approval Act. President
Obama and the democratic controlled senate are weighing the factors and concern
for serious environmental risk before making a decision on the XL phase of the
Keystone pipeline.
Many of the environmental concerns are about possible negative impacts on the
environments and ecosystems that are surrounding the pipeline project. The
concern of a spill is always a forefront as well as pollution that would affect air and
critical waterworks systems. The first phase of the Keystone pipeline crosses the
Sandhills, a large wetland system in Nebraska as well as the Ogallala Aquifer, which
is one of the largest reserves of fresh water in the world. The Ogallala Aquifer spans
across eight states in the U.S., provides drinking water for over two million people
and supports $20 billion in agriculture industries. A spill or a contamination would
compromise a critical waterworks source.
The cost to construct the original pipeline was $5.3 billion and the XL extension of
the pipeline is expected to cost about $7 billion. The Keystone pipeline, was
expected to be fully constructed by the end of 2013 but protests, and political and
economic unrest have log jammed the progress and construction of the project.
The total length of the pipeline including the proposed XL extension is 1,897
kilometers. The total capacity of pipeline is about 1.1 million barrels of crude oil per
day.
A positive of the Keystone pipeline is the possibility of creating many employment
positions for the project, but President Obama disputes the projected employment
numbers. The republicans have said that this would be a big jobs generator, there
is no evidence that thats true. The most realistic estimates are this might create
maybe 2,000 jobs during the construction of the pipeline, which might take a year or
two, but then after that were talking about 50 and 100 jobs in an economy of 150
million working people, said Obama to the New York Times.
Canadas Prime Minister Stephen Harper said, This is an enormous benefit to the
United States in terms of long-term energy security, to the Council of Foreign
Relations in May 2013.

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