Pipelines

Environmentalists are celebrating President Obama's veto of the Keystone XL pipeline. They are right to do so. It was a long and hard fought battle in which the people (and the environment) won and the capitalists lost.

The battle is not yet over though. I am doing research on the following pipelines that affect us all:

1. There is another pipeline that I read about in Mother Jones magazine that can (or is) pumping tar sands oil across the Canadian-US border. If memory serves me correct, the toxic tar sands are then either piped to terminals and loaded onto ships or trains for further processing. Any shipping would be on the Great Lakes.  Could you picture an oil spill on Lake Erie?  I don't want to.

We won a major battle in the war against the tar sands. We need to finish the war.

2. I saw the information in a public library over the summer & an ad in the Buffalo News recenrtly reminded me of a pipeline proposal in Western New York. It would start at the northernmost part of Pennsylvania's gas fracking fields and pump fracked gas from Pennsylvania across the NYS border, up the southern-tier, and very near either Buffalo or Clarence Center.

Let's face the facts here – we forced Governor “Status” Cuomo to ban fracking in NY. Why are we going to allow fracked gas from Pennsylvania into our state to be sold or shipped elsewhere? The pipeline will be a 22” - 24” single hull (only one pipe – no secondary pipe around to protect it) across prime farmland. These pipes rupture very easily and the (mostly) volunteer fire departments in the souther-tier are probably not trained in putting out gas fires. Especially gas fires that involve cancer causing compounds. And then there will (not might- will) be the associated environmental damage from the leaks and fires.

The history of pipeline leaks makes it crystal clear that the companies in charge of managing them have no way of knowing when a leak happens, how to contain it, or clean t up. Look at Arkansas, Michigan, and the ever infamous Alaskan pipeline for good examples of bad practices.

And make no mistake – If a farmer says “No” to the construction on his land, the corporation will use the power of the government and eminent domain to force the pipeline through.

If we do not want fracking done here in NY, the we need to fight against fracked gas being sold or transported by pipeline from Pennsylvania. The environmental damage that we did not want up here should not be imposed upon the people of Pennsylvania. We need to shut down the market s that the fracking stops.

As I gather the information that I need I will be posting on this pipeline. Members of 350.0rg, Green Peace, Food & Water Watch, and other environmental groups need to make stopping this pipeline a priority project. Socialists of all stripes need to work together to help them stop this project.

3. This third pipeline is metaphorical, but affects way too many people in WNY and the Buffalo area. And that is the school to prison pipeline. (Thank you Richard for reminding me of this in your post from earlier today.) Last week I found out that two of my special education students were arrested for robbery with a weapon. I shall avoid the details of the crime, but their home lives were far from great (from my understanding) and, because of school cuts, they did not have access to the educational and counseling supports that they needed. Thus, the criminal act that, because of their ages, will see them tried as adults and they will finish their educational careers in jail or prison. I doubt that wherever they spend their time will give them the extra attention and help that they need to succeed in learning.

Buffalo and other impoverished communities wind up with an inordinate amount of teenagers that wind up in jail because of poor decisions. Some of these youth would be better served with social workers and counseling than with jail. However, there is no profit in providing counseling in public schools. And it is far too easy to throw someone into a cell, forget about them for a while, and hope that they learned their lesson. It very rarely works that way, which leads to the repeat offenders and the high repeat crime rate.

These are all pipelines that need only one thing:

To be shut down.