Pipeline Decision Delayed After Massive DC Demonstration
Thousands Encircle White House to Protest Pipeline from Lucian Perkins on Vimeo.
November 6, 2011: Yale University Divinity student Kate Lichti joined an estimated ten thousand protestors who encircled the White House to protest the proposed Keystone Pipeline.
The Keystone Pipeline System would transport synthetic crude oil and diluted bitumen from the Athabasca Oil Sands in Alberta, Canada to refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma, and further south to the Gulf Coast. It consists of the operational “Keystone Pipeline” and proposed Keystone XL (Keystone Expansion) pipeline. Keystone XL has faced lawsuits from oil refineries, criticism from environmentalists and some members Congress.
The people of Lichti’s hometown of Shickley, Nebraska are worried that the pipeline could potentially damage Nebraska’s Ogallala aquifer. This is a vast underground water table that stretches across much of the Great Plains and the Midwest, irrigating about 27 percent of the land in the United State, sustaining corn, soybeans, and many other crops.
It provides 82 percent of the drinking water for the people who live above it. Kate and her family are among the millions who do. They’re worried about the oil polluting their water, and also that decisions concerning the pipeline are made by the State Department.
–Lucian Perkins
VIDEO by Lucian Perkins / facingchange.org
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