I am grateful that the U.S. Senate rejected the Keystone pipeline by just one vote! Call independent Sen. Angus King to thank him for voting against it (“Maine Sen. King casts pivotal vote as Keystone pipeline bill blocked,” Nov. 18)! Then call Republican Sen. Susan Collins. She voted for it.

Despite what supporters claim, Keystone will not reduce our dependence on foreign oil. The plan is for Canadian tar sands oil to flow to Texas to be refined then shipped out for sale on the world market.

To get the land on which to build the pipeline, TransCanada, the foreign corporation in charge, will be able to legally grab private property owned by U.S. citizens. Claiming eminent domain, states have the right to seize property for the public good (such as building roads, sewers, etc.).

But will the Keystone pipeline really be good for the public? With all the oil going overseas and all the profits to the major oil companies and Canada, I see nothing in it for us.

We’ll be left with a scarred landscape, seized property and the risk of contaminating our finite underground supply of clean, fresh water. In particular danger will be Ogallala Aquifer. This 174,000-square-mile water table underneath the Great Plains is one of the world’s largest. (A 2010 spill of 843,000 gallons of the same Canadian tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River took four years and $1.2 billion to clean up.)

According to the State Department’s Keystone report, only 35 permanent and 42,000 direct and indirect temporary jobs will be created. Considering the 200,000-plus new jobs added monthly in the U.S., are Keystone jobs worth all the risks?

Please help stop this project. The debate is not over yet. The Keystone pipeline is bad for America: for our property, our land, our health, our natural and our financial resources.

Dana Trattner

Cape Elizabeth


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