Solar Barn Raised in Keystone XL Right-of-Way

credit: Bold Nebraska

Civil protest is definitely getting more creative in America, and is not just a matter of sacrificing your body for a cause anymore. In a ceremony at Benedict, Nebraska a solar and wind powered barn was dedicated on Sunday. Volunteers built the barn directly inside the route of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline. The barn will serve as an educational center where people can learn about alternative energy that benefits agriculture. If the pipeline is built the structure, built with free labor and $65,000 in donations, will have to be removed.

The State Department's obviously biased environmental impact study for the pipeline project received another failing grade, this one from the Center for Biological Diversity. In a report titled, "In Harm's Way" the Center looked at how the pipeline and potential spills would impact North America's endangered species. The State Department produced a biological assessment that concluded only the American burying beetle would be adversely affected by the pipeline. To the contrary, says the environmental group. At least 11 other endangered species would be threatened by building the pipeline:

• Whooping cranes--their migratory route follows the path of the pipeline all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, consequently they would be adversely impacted by tailing ponds in Canada, power line collisions and dilbit spills;
• Black-footed ferrets--habitat disturbances in areas set aside for their recovery;
• Piping plover--power line collisions, spills and increased exposure to predators perching on lines;
• Sage grouse--spills and construction noise would interfere with breeding;
• Interior least turns--power line collisions, spills and habitat disturbance;
• American burying beetle--loss of habitat, compaction during construction, spills;
• Northern swift fox--loss of habitat and compaction of dens during construction

The State Department assessment was able to avoid concerning itself with most adverse impacts by unrealistically narrowing its study to the actual footprint of the pipeline itself; thus, no consideration was given to future oil spills which the government admits could be two a year. No consideration was given to power line collisions that account for a major amount of bird mortality in the United States. Nor did the agency consider what expansion of the Alberta tar sands mining is doing to the boreal forest and its wild inhabitants like the wood bison or what it will do to warm the global climate which in turn will drive many species towards extinction. In short, the State Department is a patsy for the oil industry.