Voices Against the Pipeline: The Rev. Dr. Barbara Schlachter

The following article was written by The Rev. Dr. Barbara Schlachter of 100Grannies for a Livable Future and Iowa City Climate Advocates.
About four years ago I became aware that a massive campaign was being launched nationwide to prevent our neighbor state of Nebraska from having tarsands oil run through a pipeline that would bring only possible catastrophe and no benefit to the people of the state.
Indeed I became aware that we were all under seige from the pipeline if built because it would put the world’s dirtiest oil into the atmosphere, pushing us closer to a climate doomsday.
It was with this growing awarenss that I volunteered to become one of the 1152 people who were arrested at the White House in August of 2011.

That 10 days of arrests more than any other single event helped galvanize resistance to the Keystone XL pipeline, and while it was not the last or the largest rally, it was a strong statement that we the people would not go willingly into the black hole of dirty oil.  Now our President has rejected this pipeline, standing on the side of future generations rather than the profits of oil magnates.  This is indeed a victory for our grandchildren who will have to bear the worst of climate destabilization.

Here in Iowa our struggle with pipelines has taken a more direct turn.  We have been presented with our own internal threat.  Energy Transfer Partners would like to build the Dakota Access pipeline from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota to refineries in Illinois and Texas diagonally through the heart of our state, northwest corner ot southeast corner.

Here is another disaster in the making for our water and farmland and for our climate.  We cannot allow 570,000 barrels of volatile crude to run through our state every day.  While the pipeline has the potential to damage some of the world’s finest farm land, it goes into the collective atmosphere, and we all experience the fallout of global warming, whether we live in Muscatine or Memphis or Moscow or Mumbai.

There is even the rumored possibility that given the defeat of the Keystone XL pipeline, Big Oil will try to transfer tarsands oil from Alberta through the Bakken pipeline.  The Bakken fields will run out of oil in a few years while the oil sands of Canada are incredibly vast.   This must not happen.  This pipeline must not be allowed to bisect Iowa or be built anywhere.

We call upon not only Iowans but people around the country to stand up to this new threat and help us say NO to Bakken oil.  The pipleine struggle continues, and we need the help of all those who so firmly and faithfully opposed the Keystone XL.

The Rev. Dr. Barbara Schlachter
100Grannies for a Livable Future and Iowa City Climate Advocates