Many people have heard of the Keystone pipeline, but many people are oblivious to what the pipeline does. They do not know what the effects of the pipeline, what it does for the United States, why it is bad and why it is good. Maybe they do not even know what the Keystone pipeline is. In broad terms, it is one of the United States’ biggest polluter, money-sucker and environmental concern. And even worse, they are planning on adding two additions to the pipeline. The project is called Keystone XL. The U.S. Supreme Court is planning on voting on the Keystone XL expansion sometime this year. They should all vote against the pipeline because it only would hurt the United States.

The Keystone pipeline is a huge pipe that starts from Hardisty, Alberta (also known as the tar sands) in Canada and transports crude oil to Steele City, Kansas. There, the pipeline splits into a fork, and travels to Patoka, Illinois and Cushing, Oklahoma. It was built by Canadian company TransCanada stated Huffingtonpost.com. Once the locations receive the oil, it gets refined and shipped to gas stations around the midwest. The pipeline pumps 500,000 barrels of oil from the tar sands to the United States every day. Keystone XL (proposed by TransCanada) is actually two different extensions off of the original line.

The first section is essentially a shortcut through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. From there it attaches to the original pipeline. The second extension is an attachment on to site at Cushing, Oklahoma that travels down to Houston, Texas and also Port Arthur, Texas. With the Keystone XL addition, there would be 830,000 barrels of crude oil transported from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico every day stated the Huffingtonpost.com. That would result in many environmental and climate issues.

Keystone XL was purposed once, but the sketch was turned down because of the route the pipeline took. It originally was supposed to cut straight through the Sandhills in Nebraska. The Sandhills are not only environmentally fragile, but they are a rest stop for birds migrating south. On top of all of that, the Sandhills are a fundamental part of the Ogalala aquifer which the pipeline would cross also. Two million people drink from the Ogalala aquifer stated Washingtonpost.com It is the United States’ largest source of fresh water.

The pipeline would not be such an environmental problem if it did not leak oil. Between 2010 and 2011, the pipeline had 12 leaks. The spills seem to be inevitable, knowing that many spills happened last year as well. If there were to be an oil spill into the Ogalala aquifer, it would be a disaster to every living thing.

Yet another environmental concern is air quality, mainly near the south end of line line where the oil would be refined. According to nrdc.org, emissions from the refineries can cause huge health risks including asthma, cancer and lung and heart disease. Oil from the Tar Sands is known to be a big polluter. It contains heavy metals and the components to create smog. .

There is a huge process the oil needs to go through to be able to be transferred via pipe. That plus the labor intense mining to get the oil out of the ground make the pipeline highly unconventional.

“So, there’s the carbon factor of mining the tar sands and then there’s the carbon contained in the tar sands themselves that would be added to the atmosphere, raising the level of CO2 and furthering climate change. In the tar sands as a whole, there’s enough carbon (~230 gigatons) to increase CO2 by ~100 ppm. That’s a lot. Probably way more than would ever be emitted just by Keystone XL alone,” stated Rebecca Anderson, a scientist and educator for the Alliance for Climate Education

Keystone XL is a horrible idea. There are no positives. It is very much a environmental killer and climate killer. Over the past few years, there has really been a “Go Green” push, which has inspired many. Keystone XL would just cancel out all of the environmental progress the United States has made. The original Keystone pipeline is bad enough.