12/19/19

Intervenors challenge KXL water permits


In efforts to block water permits sought by a Texas-based pipeline operator testimony from stakeholders in tribal nations and the environmental community will continue until Friday before the South Dakota Water Management Board.
But Jung-Hoe Hopwood acknowledged he hadn’t considered tribal water rights, didn’t know how many tribes were in South Dakota and didn’t know if any tribes were farther downstream. Hopwood, who works for EXP Consulting of Tallahassee, Florida, said he has been involved since 2009 on projects for what previously was TransCanada and now is TC Energy. [KELO teevee]
Had the Quinn Dam failed during high water last Spring one of its first casualties could have been the Keystone XL pipeline where it's proposed to cross the Bad River. Contaminated with mercury for decades, Newell Lake in Butte County, South Dakota has just been closed to the public because of unstable dam conditions.

Every moving stream, intermittent or not in South Dakota, has supported a pre-settlement Amerindian or European explorer pulling and propelling a canoe over it. Nearly all the waterways in the state are impaired today.

Intervenors are frustrated with Republican Governor Kristi Noem after she blew off a meeting with tribal members. She's reeling from a loss of her "riot-boosting" law after a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. South Dakota has no contingency money for cleaning up pipeline disasters and because it is an international project ecoterrorist TC Energy doesn’t pay into a reclamation fund.
The State-Tribal Relations Committee of the South Dakota legislature approved a bill that would make pipeline companies more accountable for any problems caused by a leak. Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman Harold Frazier says natives don’t have any protections. Committee Member, Senator Troy Heinert of Mission says current state law is very weak. [WNAX]
As ice floes bash moorings and flooding causes scouring of fill from river bottoms the disasters befalling the Missouri basin should be a stern warning to erstwhile pipeline operators: it's not nice to fool Mother Nature.
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3 comments:

  1. larry kurtzDecember 20, 2019 at 6:07 AM

    State of South Dakota is blowing off KXL consultation with Rosebud Sioux Tribe: KELO teevee.

    ReplyDelete
  2. larry kurtzDecember 21, 2019 at 5:36 AM

    Water board extends hearings citing potential for violence against women and girls: Rapid City Journal.

    ReplyDelete
  3. larry kurtzDecember 26, 2019 at 3:24 AM

    "According to a 2017 report by the World Resources Institute, North Dakota had the second-largest carbon emissions per capita in the country in 2014, behind Wyoming. South Dakota came in 10th for the country’s largest per-capita emissions." As Minnesota works toward climate policy reform, Dakotas see emissions increase

    ReplyDelete

Republican is simply another word for Earth hater but comments intended to troll the author or other readers will not be published so use a handle or even your real name and don’t be an asshole.