Feds say Keystone won’t harm environment
Janell Cole N.D. Capitol Bureau
Published Friday, January 18, 2008
BISMARCK — The TransCanada Keystone Pipeline “would result in limited adverse environmental impacts” in North Dakota and other states it will pass through, the U.S. government says.
The State Department has released its final environmental impact statement on the project, though it will still accept public comment until approximately Feb. 11, then issue a final order, according to a cover letter to “colleagues and stakeholders” dated Jan. 11.
The 30-inch pipe is planned to run from near Walhalla to near Cogswell, transporting Canadian crude oil to refineries in Illinois and, eventually, Oklahoma.
Public Service Commissioner Kevin Cramer said Thursday that the EIS doesn’t affect the PSC’s upcoming decision on the Keystone route through North Dakota.
“It’s gone through pretty rigorous standards,” he said.
But, he added, the PSC’s eventual order approving the pipeline will say that a favorable EIS is a condition that has to be met.
The Dakota Resource Council, whose members have opposed the line or asked for changes in the proposed route through North Dakota, will “absolutely” be offering comment on the document, a spokesman for the group said this morning.
Some members, landowners in the Walsh-Nelson counties area, held a meeting about the EIS on Wednesday night in Dahlen, N.D. Their concerns about the pipeline possibly affecting their groundwater persist, assurances in a government document notwithstanding.
“It’s a safety issue, that’s what scares all of us on the outside looking in,” one of the landowners, Merle Kratochvil of Lankin said Thursday.
His area has a shallow water table, 40 feet at the deepest. “We can hit water by digging a post hole,” he said. “We’re really asking for a lot of trouble out there (from the pipeline). It’s a scary situation.”
He and other opponents believe parts of the EIS have not been completed.
The final EIS is available on line at www.keystonepipeline.state.gov/clientsite/keystone.nsf/?Open
It is also available at public libraries in the following cities: Cavalier, Cooperstown, Enderlin, Forman, Grand Forks, Lakota, LaMoure, Langdon, Mayville, Oakes, Park River, Valley City and Walhalla.
Janell Cole works for Forum Communications Co., which owns The Dickinson Press.
http://www.thedickinsonpress.com/articles/index.cfm?id=13632§ion=new...
